Kenyan forces regain control of Somali camp

Friday January 22, 2016
By Paul Richardson

An honor guard, right, bows their heads while a soldier, as they stand by the coffins of four Kenyan soldiers killed in Somalia last week. Photo: Ben Curtis

Kenyan forces fighting in neighbouring Somalia have regained control of a military camp attacked by Islamist militants last week, Kenya Defence Forces Chief General Samson Mwathethe said.

Kenyan air forces are continuing to carry out air raids on the fighters, General Mwathethe told reporters at a televised press conference on Thursday in the capital, Nairobi. The authorities are still verifying the number of soldiers killed and injured in the attack on the based, he said.

"We have not finalised this operation," General Mwathethe said. "There will be the dead. There will be the missing. We will tell you the figures as we go along."

Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked militant group that's been fighting Somalia's government for the past decade, said it killed at least 100 Kenyan soldiers in the January 15 attack on the el-Adde camp in south-western Somalia.

Kenyan forces invaded Somalia in 2011 to help fight the Islamists, before joining an African Union-led peacekeeping force that also includes troops from Ethiopia, Uganda and Burundi.

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