The African Union’s AMISOM forces claim that 110 al-Shabaab were killed and a “large cache of weapons” seized in the al-Shabaab attack on Ethiopian AU troops in Somalia, just north of Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab reported 60 Ethiopian troops killed.
It was a major fight, by all accounts, though both sides tell radically different tales of how it went, with al-Shabaab claiming they’d lost only 16 fighters in the incident, and the AMISOM forces dismissing all reports of AU casualties as “falsehoods.”
Other reports suggested that 43 soldiers were killed, mostly in a car bombing, and that al-Shabaab briefly took over the base before being expelled, with considerable casualties on both sides. As is often the case, however, there is no independent confirmation.
AMISOM has had a major presence across Somalia for many years now, aiming to prop up a government therein which has rarely had control of much outside of the capital city. Al-Shabaab is just the latest in a line of factions resisting the fighting.