According to the Somali military, the national army of the nation carried out a planned military operation against the jihadist group al-Shabab in the Middle Shabelle region, killing at least 50 al-Shabab extremists. The operation was assisted by local people.
Somalia’s national army headquarters said in a statement on Saturday that the army’s planned action against the terrorists took place in the village of Darul-nicim in the Middle Shabelle district.
Military action has increased over the past three weeks in the area outside the strategically important town of Adan Yabal, which was just recently freed. Adan Yabal is located 217 kilometres north of the capital, Mogadishu.
In a short statement posted on Twitter on Saturday night, the Somali National Army said that it had “killed around 50 Khawarij in an operation in the hamlet of Darul-Nicim in the Middle Shabelle region and adjacent villages under Adan Yabal district.”
Al-Shabab is an Islamist terrorist group. The government of Somalia calls them khawarij.
The operation takes place a day after Abdirahman Yusuf Omar Al-Adala, Somalia’s deputy information minister, said the army had killed at least 88 al-Shabab fighters in the same province within 48 hours.
READ ALSO : According to Somali government reports, 88 militants were killed in the Middle Shabelle region
In the meantime, Ali Jeyte Osman, the governor of Hiran in central Somalia, offered $30,000 to any al-Shabab member who killed Ali Mohamud Rage, also known as Ali Dhere, the group’s spokesman.
After touring various communities outside of Beledweyne, the provincial capital of the Hiran region, Jeyte spoke with Somali security personnel and neighbourhood clan militias on Saturday. He declared that the government would offer a $10,000 prize for the death of each al-Shabab militant.
The Somali troops were able to push the rebels out of a large part of the central states of Galmudug and Hirshabelle.
Since 2007, the country in the Horn of Africa has been battling al-Shabab. For more than ten years, militants in Somalia have carried out lethal attacks on members of the government and African Union peacekeeping forces.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was just re-elected as president of Somalia, said that he would fight al-Shabab in an “all-out battle.”
