KDF kills 19 Al-Shabaab militants, recover vehicle, 10 AK 47 rifles and 3 RPGs in Lower Juba, Somalia

Kenya Defence Forces Wednesday killed 19 Al-Shabaab militants in a clash in Afmadhow area, Somalia.

The KDF personnel said they recovered a vehicle, 10 AK 47 rifles and three Rocket Propelled Grenades.

Spokesman Col David Obonyo said the killings happened at about 10 am and that the militants planned an attack on a camp occupied by the Amisom and Somali National Army troops in Afmadhow, Lower Juba Region.

“The Al-Shabaab terrorists had approached the camp at night with the intention to attack and cut off the SNA from Amisom (KDF) camp. KDF soldiers on patrol identified the militants and engaged them in a fierce battle.”

“The Al-Shabaab attempted to fight back but were swiftly repulsed by the KDF soldiers on patrol and those at the camp,” said Col Obonyo.

The statement did not indicate if there was a casualty on the Amisom troops.

Kenya has about 4,000 troops in the 22,000-strong African Union force battling al-Shabaab, which is part of al-Qaeda, in Somalia.

The incident comes two weeks after the US strike killed more than 150 al-Shabaab militants.

The Pentagon said the killings happened at a training camp where a large scale attack was being planned.

"We know they were going to be departing the camp and they posed an imminent threat to US and [African Union] forces," spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.

Mr Davis said the strike, by both drones and manned aircraft, took place on Saturday and targeted Raso Camp, a training facility about 195 kilometers north of the capital, Mogadishu.

The camp had been under surveillance for some time, according to Mr Davis. "There was a sense that the operational phase was about to happen," he said.

He said the group had neared the completion of specialist training to conduct "offensive operations", but did not give any details about the alleged plans.

Davis said as many as 200 fighters were believed to be training at the Raso camp at the time of the strike and expressed confidence there were no civilian casualties.

The terror group, which is an affiliate of al-Qaeda, was pushed out of Mogadishu by African Union peacekeeping forces in 2011 but has continued to launch frequent attacks in its bid to overthrow the Western-backed government.

The group has carried out a string of attacks in and out of Kenya including the January 15 one in El-Adde where they killed 180 KDF personnel.

The air strike is seen as a major blow to the terrorist as it came just after Australian Navy seized a huge cache of weapons on a fishing boat off the coast of Oman that was headed for Somalia.

The weapons included grenade launchers, machine guns, and 2,000 AK47 assault rifles that were concealed under fishing nets, a Navy spokesman said.

Naval officers discovered the arsenal hidden between fishing nets when they searched the stateless vessel about 313 kilometers off the coast of Oman.

Close to 90 assorted machine guns and 20 military mortar tubes were also found on the boat.

In its recent strategy, the US military said it plans to cripple al-Shabaab and address the situation in Libya and contain Boko Haram in West Africa.

Using drones from its nearby bases in neighbouring Djibouti, the US has succeeded in striking hard at the heart of Al-Shabaab operations, including killing Ahmed Godane, the leader of the jihadist group, in 2014 and many other leaders.

Al-Shabaab terror attacks have been on the increase since Kenyan troops crossed to Somalia to crush the group in 2011. They have been blamed on killings of more than 500 Kenyans and left more than 1,000 others injured in separate attacks.