Global Courant
The announcement comes a week after Al-Shabab fighters stormed a base housing African Union peacekeepers in Somalia.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has announced the deaths of 54 Ugandan soldiers in an Al-Shabab attack on a base in Somalia housing African Union peacekeepers.
Museveni’s statement on Saturday comes a week after Al-Shabab fighters stormed the base in Bulamarer, 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The armed group claimed it carried out suicide bombings on May 26, killing 137 soldiers.
Museveni said on Saturday that the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) had since recaptured the base from the al-Qaeda-affiliated armed group.
“Our soldiers showed remarkable resilience and reorganized, resulting in the recapture of the base by Tuesday,” the president said.
Museveni said last week there had been Ugandan casualties, but had not given further details about the attack on troops serving in the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
Al-Shabab has been fighting since 2006 to replace Somalia’s Western-backed government with its own rule based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
An intense government offensive began last August following President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s electoral victory and has made significant progress in eroding the group’s control over vast swaths of Somali land.
But al-Shabab is still capable of launching significant attacks against governmental, commercial and military targets.
It is also intermittently launching attacks in neighboring Kenya as part of reprisals for Nairobi sending troops to support Mogadishu’s pushback of the rebels.
ATMIS, which has 22,000 troops, has been aiding the Somali federal government in its war against al-Shabab since 2022, when it replaced the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
(TagsToTranslate)News
