A US airstrike blewa away 150 militants linked to an al Qaeda affiliate at a terrorist training site in Somalia, Pentagon officials said Monday.
Unmanned drones and piloted aircraft carried out Saturday’s fierce attack against the Raso camp in central Somalia after US intelligence officers caught wind of an impending strike against American interests by al-Shabab extremists, the Defense Department said.
“We know they were going to be departing the camp and they posed an imminent threat to US and [African Union] forces,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said at a press conference.
“Initial assessments are that more than 150 terrorist fighters were eliminated,” Davis added.
The camp, which is located over 100 miles north of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu and can train up to 200 militants at any given time, had been under surveillance for several weeks by US spies, Davis said.
Intelligence officers finally concluded that the group was finishing “specialized training to conduct offensive operations,” according to Davis.
“The removal of these fighters degrades al-Shabab’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Somalia, including recruiting new members, establishing bases, and planning attacks,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Davis wouldn’t say whether it was US intelligence officials who had originally identified the camp or whether the facility had ever launched a terror attack.
It was also unclear if any of al-Shabab’s leadership was killed.
The US suffered no casualties.
Al-Shabab, which is based in East Africa, is waging war against the African Union — a military force that has thrown its support behind Western governments.
The jihadist group’s latest attack came early Monday, when it exploded a bomb outside an airport in the city of Beledweyne, Somalia, murdering an AU peacekeeper and two Somali fighters.
Al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Abdiasis Abu Musab boasted about the attack, telling Reuters, “We were behind the blast that targeted Djibouti forces. We shall give details of casualties later.”
A local military officer reportedly said that the bomb had been concealed in a “paper bag.”
Last month, the group claimed responsibility for botching an attack on a commercial airliner that was forced to make an emergency landing at Mogadishu International Airport after a bomb smuggled aboard exploded, blowing a hole in the fuselage. The only casualty was the terrorist.
With Post Wires
