{"id":29830,"date":"2019-01-19T23:22:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-19T23:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29830"},"modified":"2019-01-19T23:22:45","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T23:22:45","slug":"52-al-shabab-fighters-killed-in-somalia-airstrike-us-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29830","title":{"rendered":"52 al-Shabab fighters killed in Somalia airstrike: US military"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"97.1112476951\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">The <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/united-states.html\">United States<\/a>&#8216; military has said that an airstrike in southern <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/somalia.html\">Somalia<\/a> killed at least 52 al-Shabab fighters, in response to an attack earlier in the day that left at least eight Somali soldiers dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">A US Africa Command statement on Saturday said the strike occurred near Jilib in Middle Juba region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Jubaland regional security minister Abdirashid Hassan Abdinur told state-run Radio Mogadishu that the fatalities from the <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/organisations\/al-shabab.html\">al-Shabab<\/a> side could be as high as 73.<\/p>\n<p>There was no immediate comment from al-Shabab on the death toll.<\/p>\n<p><!-- PAGELOADEDSUCCESSFULLY-->Earlier on Saturday, at least eight Somali soldiers were killed when al-Shabab fighters overran a military camp on the outskirts of the town of Kismayo.<\/p>\n<p>According to reports, the heavily-armed fighters launched a dawn raid on the military camp, followed by a heavy exchange of gunfire which lasted hours.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab claimed it killed 15 Somali soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>The incident came a day after al-Shabab said it had attacked Ethiopian troops in Somalia in an ambush on the road between the capital, Mogadishu, and the southwest town of Baidoa.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2017, the US military has stepped up air raids against the armed group.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab controls large parts of rural southern and central Somalia and continues to carry out high-profile attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab forces have been fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed government in Mogadishu.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, it also carried out a <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2019\/01\/kenya-president-attackers-hotel-attack-killed-190116062350181.html\">deadly attack<\/a> in neighbouring <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/kenya.html\">Kenya<\/a>, which it has regularly targeted since Nairobi sent troops into Somalia.<\/p>\n<p>Four gunmen and a suicide bomber left 21 dead and injured 28 in Nairobi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States&#8217; military has said that an airstrike in southern Somalia killed at least 52 al-Shabab fighters, in response to an attack earlier in the day that left at least eight Somali soldiers dead. A US Africa Command statement on Saturday said the strike occurred near Jilib in Middle Juba region. Jubaland regional security&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29830","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\/29830","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=29830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}