Armed forces of Somalia and US airstrikes target al-Shabaab

Armed forces of Somalia and US airstrikes target al-Shabaab

Noriko Watanabe and Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

Elite soldiers from the armed forces of Somalia and airstrikes by America have targeted al-Shabaab (al-Shabab) Islamists in the Shabelle region. This comes after recent terrorist attacks by al-Shabaab killed approximately 100 people in Mogadishu.

Government forces said they killed 21 al-Shabaab Islamists in the region of the lower Shabelle. The National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) carried out the attack.

The Ministry of Information said, “The operation was executed as planned and destroyed all militants who were there plotting against the people of Somalia.”

Al-Shabaab Islamists killed at least 15 military recruits the day before. This happened after a suicide bomber attacked a training facility of the armed forces of Somalia in Mogadishu.

America also carried out airstrikes against the al-Shabaab Islamists in the Shabelle region.

Voice of America reports, “A statement by the U.S. Africa Command on Saturday describes the airstrike as being carried out Thursday in “collective self-defense” and at the request of the Somali National Army near the town of Cadale in the Middle Shabelle region.”

Al-Shabaab immediately responded by killing at least two students in Mogadishu in a roadside explosion.

All sides are committing atrocities in this brutal Islamist insurgency. A Hiran elder, Ahmed Abdulle, told Reuters, “Al-Shabab is not strong, it just burns people, beheads people and puts their heads in the streets to terrorize… Now, we are doing the same: we have ordered the beheading of al-Shabab fighters.”

Somalia also faces a famine and is blighted by food insecurity and malnutrition.

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