Somali president claims 200 Kenyans killed in Jan 15 raid – Mortar attack near palace kills 4 in Magadishu

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MOGADISHU, Feb 26, (RTRS): As many as 200 soldiers were killed in an attack on a Kenyan military camp in Somalia by al Shebab Islamists last month, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told a television station, although Kenya rejected the figure.

Kenyan authorities have refused to give a death toll following the Jan 15 raid, which targeted troops working under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) near the southern Somali town of El Adde.

Newspaper pictures of coffins draped with Kenyan flags bringing back dead soldiers after the attack increased the disquiet from ordinary Kenyans and the opposition alike over Kenya’s continued presence in Somalia.

Al Shebab later distributed photos purporting to show the bodies of dozens of Kenyan soldiers, many apparently shot in the head.

“When about 200 soldiers who came to help your country are killed in one morning, it is not something trivial,” Mohamud told Somali Cable TV, a privately owned station. The interview was posted on YouTube on Thursday.

“We have been winning for years and months but that El Adde battle, we were defeated. Yes, in war, sometimes something that you do not like happens to you,” he said.

Kenya sent soldiers into Somalia in 2011 after raids in the border region and kidnappings that threatened the tourism industry in the region’s biggest economy and wider regional destabilisation. It later joined the AMISOM operation.

Al Shebab’s attacks in Kenya have included a raid by gunmen on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and a university in Garissa in 2015. Hundreds of people have been killed in al Shebab attacks in the past two years.

Kenya Defence Forces spokesman, Colonel David Obonyo, denied the number given by the Somali president and questioned the source of the information.

“It is not true. This information never came from us or anyone in the government of Kenya,” he told Reuters.

The al Qaeda-aligned militants have been driven out of major strongholds in Somalia by AMISOM and Somali army offensives, but the group still controls some rural areas and often launches guerrilla-style assaults and bomb attacks.

Al Shebab, which has links to al Qaeda and seeks to overthrow Somalia’s Western-backed government, initially said it had killed more than 100 soldiers in the attack.

The group, which is also seeking to drive the AU force out of Somalia, often says its attacks against Kenyan targets are retaliation for its participation in AMISOM, which also includes Uganda and Burundi.

Meanwhile, at least four civilians, including two children, were killed in Mogadishu on Thursday when a volley of mortar shells landed close to Somalia’s presidential palace, police and witnesses said.

The four dead were all members of the same family. The two youngsters and their grandmother were killed at once and their father died later of his wounds.

“A woman and two children from the same family were killed in the Wardhigley area and several others were wounded,” said Somali police officer Ibrahim Mohamed who blamed “mortar blasts” for the deaths.

“Several rounds of mortar shells landed close to the palace striking civilian occupied houses,” Mohamed added.

It was not immediately clear where the mortars were fired from, but witnesses said they appeared to be aiming at the presidential palace, known as Villa Somalia. The hilltop government district is regularly targeted by the Shebab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda aligned militants fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed government.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack.

“I think the mortar shells were aimed at striking the palace as they have landed in a close by neighbourhood,” said Abdukadir Suleiman, a witness. “It was disaster and it killed several civilians.”

In another report, Somalia on Monday demanded that Kenya explain why it detained Somali lawmakers at an airport when they were travelling as part of a government delegation, in the latest diplomatic row between the East African neighbours.

Kenya, along with several other African states, has sent troops to Somalia to help the Mogadishu-based government fight al Shabab, Islamist rebels with ties to al Qaeda. But relations between the two countries have been testy in recent years.

Somalia and Kenya dispute the location of their maritime boundary line in the Indian Ocean, and Kenya has sold oil and gas-drilling rights to foreign companies in the disputed zone. Somalia has also protested Kenya’s plan to build a 700-km wall along their border.

The latest row comes after Somali lawmakers travelling to Turkey with Somali Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke arrived in Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in the capital of Nairobi on Saturday.

The lawmakers were not given visas on arrival and were detained several hours, said Somali government spokesman Abdisalam Aato.

All flights from Somalia to Kenya stop for extra security checks at the town of Wajir, near the Somali border, but the flight the lawmakers were on did not do this. The Somali government said the country’s leadership is exempt from rule.

“The Federal Government of Somalia protests this unwarranted incident at JKIA and expects full justification and explanation from Kenya,” Somalia’s government said in a statement.

The Kenyan presidency was not immediately available for comment.

Kenyans say extra security checks on are needed because security at the Mogadishu International Airport is poor.

Earlier this month a bomb was smuggled on to a plane at Mogadishu airport. It exploded in mid-air but only killed the suspected suicide bomber.

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