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A local militia commander told AFP on Tuesday that 11 soldiers had been killed in an attack on a military camp claimed by extremist Islamist Shebab.
This comes a day after the government announced the strategic recapture of the town.
“The jihadists first blew up vehicles with explosives and then attacked military camps in Howardley,” said Mohamed Osman, commander of a local militia allied with the government.
Eleven members of the army were killed, including the commander, and “dozens of terrorists were killed,” he added.
The attack was claimed by Shebab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group.
Shebab has been fighting the internationally backed federal government since 2007. After being forced out of the country’s main cities in 2011-2012, they remain firmly entrenched in vast rural areas.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who returned to power in May 2022, has promised an “all-out war” against the Islamist group and recently described its members as “bed bugs.” A local militia known as the ‘macawisley’ who rebelled against Shibab.
The offensive, aided by Somali African Union forces (Atomis) and US airstrikes, resulted in the recapture of large areas of the two central states of Hirschabel and Garmudug.
Somali forces recaptured Haraldea on Monday, a port city deemed “strategic” by authorities, located about 500 km north of the capital and controlled by Shibab since 2010.
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