{"id":23999,"date":"2018-12-02T09:22:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T09:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23999"},"modified":"2018-12-02T09:22:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T09:22:35","slug":"somalia-us-military-says-attack-kills-nine-al-shabab-fighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23999","title":{"rendered":"Somalia: US military says attack kills nine al-Shabab fighters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"89.1227521501\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">The United States military said it killed nine fighters in an air attack targeting al-Shabab fighters in Lebede, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/Search\/?q=somalia\">Somalia<\/a>, as part of its operations to support the government&#8217;s efforts to weaken the armed group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The military&#8217;s Africa Command (Africom) said the attack was carried out on Friday. &#8220;We currently assess this air strike killed nine militants with no civilians involved,&#8221; Africom said in a statement late on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\"><span>The statement gave no details on those killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>US military involvement in Somalia has grown since President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/people\/donald-trump.html\">Donald Trump<\/a> approved expanded operations against al-Shabab early in his term.<\/p>\n<p><span>Washington currently has about 500 military personnel in the Horn of Africa nation and<\/span>\u00a0carries out periodic air raids in support of the UN-backed government there.<\/p>\n<p>The US has carried out at least <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/11\/air-strikes-target-al-shabaab-fighters-somalia-181122114704203.html\">37 air raids<\/a>\u00a0this year against the al-Qaeda-linked group, one of Africa&#8217;s deadliest rebel groups, which continues to stage attacks in Somalia&#8217;s capital, Mogadishu, and other cities.<\/p>\n<p>The group killed at least <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/11\/somalia-sufi-scholar-followers-killed-al-shabab-attack-181126053348923.html\">15 people<\/a>, including a Sufi Muslim leader, in a suicide explosion in the central town of Galkayo last Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab was pushed out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in recent years but continues to control rural areas in the south and central regions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<p>\n            SOURCE:<br \/>\n            <span>Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States military said it killed nine fighters in an air attack targeting al-Shabab fighters in Lebede, Somalia, as part of its operations to support the government&#8217;s efforts to weaken the armed group. The military&#8217;s Africa Command (Africom) said the attack was carried out on Friday. &#8220;We currently assess this air strike killed nine&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}