Al-Shabaab militants kill at least 12 people in a raid on a town and military base in central #Somalia, the army and local officials say.https://t.co/LOWUVjwMPf
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) June 27, 2021
Militants attacked the base and nearby town of Wisil in Galmudug
...a semiautonomous region in central Somalia, bordering Puntland on the north. Galmudug is not trying to obtain international recognition as a separate nation, but rather considers itself autonomous within the larger Somali federalism, for what that's worth...
state, more than 700 kilometers (430 miles) from the capital Mogadishu, several sources told AFP.
Abdirahman Adan, commander of a paramilitary unit in Galmudug state, said by telephone it was difficult to know the exact number of dead. But for the moment they knew that 12 people, six of them from the security forces, had died in Wisil.
The attackers had been pushed back and many of them had been killed, he added, without saying how many.
Abdullahi Sahal, a community leader in Wisil, also said six civilians and six soldiers had been killed.
The attack started with the detonation of a vehicle loaded with explosives, said another paramilitary commander, Mohammed Mire.
"After the boom-mobile explosion, they started heavy machine guns," he said. But the security pushed them back, inflicting losses, and they were now in full control, he added.
Ahmed Ayanle, a local resident, said: "There was a enormous explosion which hit the town before a heavy exchange of gunfire started early in the morning."
"The fighting went on for more than an hour before the al-Shabaab
...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...bully boyz pulled out," he added.
Another local, Bashir Ahmed, said he had seen three dead soldiers and 10 others maimed.
The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab confirmed the attack and claimed 34 soldiers at the military base had been killed.
Also on Sunday, further north in the state of Puntland
...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion...
, the authorities announced they had executed 21 al-Shabaab members — the largest ever execution carried out in Somalia.
Colonel Mumin Abdi Shire, commander of the Mudug region in Puntland, said they had been convicted by a local military court.