US Military Conducts Airstrike Against Al-Shabab in Somalia.
The United States military has confirmed conducting a new airstrike against al-Shabab militants in the Middle Juba region of southern Somalia.
The airstrike took place in Jilib town on Saturday in collaboration with the Somali federal government, according to a press statement released Monday by the U.S. Africa Command known as AFRICOM.
“The command’s initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed,” the statement said.
The AFRICOM statement did not say whether any of the senior al-Shabab commanders were targeted. Jilib, 385 kilometers (239 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, is an al-Shabab stronghold.
The strike came as Mahad Salad, director of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, was in Washington and New York, meeting with U.S. officials from the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, according to a source familiar with the visit who did not want to be identified as they are not authorized to speak to the media.
The talks focused on security and counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries, the source added.
Roadside bombing
Meanwhile, four Somali government soldiers were killed Monday in a roadside explosion in Mogadishu’s Daynile district, the Ministry of Defense said.
Brigadier General Abdullahi Ali Anod, the ministry’s spokesperson, said that the attack occurred at about 9 a.m., and that three soldiers and an officer with the construction unit had been killed.
Despite the explosion, he said, capital security has been improving since new military police were deployed more than a month ago.
The new forces were among Somali security personnel trained in Uganda in recent months, government officials said.
Source: VOA news
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