Dozens of Somali soldiers were killed in a major battle with al Shabaab in southern \u200bSomalia, two soldiers told Reuters, while the defence \u200cministry said government forces killed about 75 militants.<\/p>\n
Somalia’s defence ministry said about 75 militants were killed and another 56 were \u200bwounded in the fighting in the Jameeco area \u200bof Buurhakaba district. The statement did not say \u2060how many soldiers were killed or wounded.<\/p>\n
Somalia, in the \u200bHorn of Africa, has been grappling with a nearly \u200btwo-decade-long insurgency led by al Shabaab, which seeks to establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Sharia law.<\/p>\n
The \u200bdefence ministry said the militants had attacked the \u200bnational army using vehicles packed with explosives and that some army \u200cvehicles \u2060were damaged.<\/p>\n
Two soldiers told Reuters that dozens of soldiers were killed in the battle.<\/p>\n
One of the soldiers, who gave his name as Ahmed, said he had helped \u200btransport 40 dead \u200bsoldiers and \u2060more than 100 wounded to hospitals in the capital Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
Another soldier called Farah \u200bsaid al-Shabaab car bombs had ruined \u200bfive military \u2060vehicles and estimated that dozens of soldiers were killed in the explosions.<\/p>\n
Somalia has endured conflict and clan battles \u2060with \u200bno strong central government since the \u200bfall of autocratic ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dozens of Somali soldiers were killed in a major battle with al Shabaab in southern \u200bSomalia, two soldiers told Reuters, while the defence \u200cministry said government forces killed about 75 militants. Somalia’s defence ministry said about 75 militants were killed and another 56 were \u200bwounded in the fighting in the Jameeco area \u200bof Buurhakaba district. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,1129],"tags":[2186,189],"class_list":["post-22433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-al-shabaab","tag-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22435,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433\/revisions\/22435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}