Airstrike, army attack kill dozens of al Shabaab fighters in Somalia

Mogadishu: An airstrike by Somali forces killed 12 al Shabaab militants in central Somalia and another 35 Islamists were killed by the army in a southwestern area as they tried to attack a military base there, the government said on Thursday.

The airstrike carried out late on Wednesday came hours after fighters from the al Qaeda-linked group that has been waging an insurgency since 2007 attacked a strategic town in the area.

Al Shabaab, which wants to seize power and rule based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic law, briefly captured villages within 50 km (30 miles) of Mogadishu last month, raising fears among residents of the capital that the city could be targeted.

Several senior al Shabaab fighters were among those killed in the airstrike carried out by Somali forces and the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in the central Adan Yabaal district, Somalia's government said.

"The targeted strike hit a site used by the militants as a gathering and hideout ... Importantly there were not civilian casualties," the Ministry of Information said in a statement on the social media platform X.

In a separate incident on Thursday, the national army killed at least 35 fighters near the city of Baidoa, the ministry said.

Heavy fighting broke out on Wednesday in the town of Adan Yabaal, which lies about 245 km (150 miles) north of Mogadishu and has been used as an operating base for raids on al Shabaab.

The outcome of the battle was not immediately clear, with government forces and al Shabaab giving conflicting accounts of who was in control of the town.

Al Shabaab said its forces had overrun 10 military installations during Wednesday's fighting.

Somali forces have recaptured the villages briefly seized last month, but al Shabaab has continued to advance in the countryside, leading the government to deploy police and prison guards to support the military, soldiers have told Reuters.