Al-Shabab Claims to Have Killed Dozens of Kenyan Troops
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Somalia's al-Shabab terrorist group said it has killed dozens of Kenyan troops when it attacked a remote military base in the country's south, while Kenya's army dismissed the report and said "scores" of fighters were killed.
A spokesman for the armed group, which often launches attacks on African Union troops stationed in the Horn of Africa country, said on Friday that its fighters killed at least 57 Kenyans at the base in the town of Kulbiyow a day earlier.
"We are pursuing the Kenyan soldiers who ran away into the woods," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab's military operation spokesman, told Reuters news agency about the attack near the Kenyan border.
Al-Shabab said it lost fighters but did not give numbers. The group also claimed to have taken over the base, run by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
The Kenyan army denied the claims, calling them "false".
"Al-Shabab is known for propaganda, whatever they are saying about the attack is incorrect, including the number," a Kenyan defense forces spokesman, Colonel Paul Njugunam, told Al Jazeera.
Kenyan television channel NTV reported that "several KDF (Kenya Defense Forces) soldiers were believed killed" in the raid and heavy fighting was reported.
In January last year, al-Shabab said it had killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers in El Adde, a Somali camp near the border with Kenya.
Al-Shabab has been fighting for years in Somalia. The group was driven out from Mogadishu in 2011.
