Hiiraan Online
Friday June 8, 2018
Mogadishu (HOL) - Somali security forces successfully fought off Al-Shabaab militants last night after the Al-Qaeda linked extremists launched an attack on a Somali National Army base in Walid district, Bakool region.
Details are beginning to emerge from the overnight firefight between SNA troops and Al-Shabaab fighters. Residents tell Hiiraan Online that the attack began with Al-Shabaab fighters detonating explosives and firing rocket-propelled grenades towards the military base. The SNA fighters and Ethiopian troops stationed in the base returned with heavy firepower.
After half an hour of fierce fighting, the Al-Shabaab attackers began to retreat.
An SNA military officer named Jama Farah Muse said the attack was repulsed by SNA officers and denied reports that the group has penetrated Wajid.
The attack comes just hours after fighters loyal to Al-Shabaab took control of Deynuunay village, a small town 20km east of Baidoa.
Al-Shabaab militants are fighting to overthrow Somalia’s internationally-backed federal government and impose its own harsh interpretation of sharia law. Although the group has been dislodged from the capital by AMISOM backed troops in 2011, the group still continues to hold large swathes of land in the south and central Somalia.