{"id":23783,"date":"2016-03-08T23:45:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T23:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/al-shabab-denies-us-strike-in-somalia-killed-150\/"},"modified":"2016-03-08T23:45:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T23:45:19","slug":"al-shabab-denies-us-strike-in-somalia-killed-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/al-shabab-denies-us-strike-in-somalia-killed-150\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Shabab denies US strike in Somalia killed 150 fighters"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Militant Islamist group al-Shabab has dismissed as exaggerated US claims that more than 150 of its fighters were killed in an air strike in Somalia.}<\/p>\n

The militants do not meet in such large numbers in “one spot” because of the threat of an attack, a spokesman said.<\/p>\n

He did not give details of casualties.<\/p>\n

A resident said that al-Shabab had arrested several people from the remote central Somali village of Raso, after the US bombed its training camp in a nearby forested area on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The US said the strike, by both drones and manned aircraft, was aimed at preventing a “large-scale attack” by the al-Qaeda-linked militants.<\/p>\n

The resident told the BBC Somali service that al-Shabab recruits from around Somalia had been converging on the camp, about 195km (120 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu, since last week.<\/p>\n

The US strike appeared to have led to heavy casualties, with al-Shabab reinforcements arriving to collect the dead, the resident added.<\/p>\n

Fighters who survived the assault had now left the area, he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for al-Shabab, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, confirmed to Reuters news agency that the US had bombed an area controlled by the militants.<\/p>\n

However, the US had exaggerated the number of casualties, he said.<\/p>\n

“We never gather 100 fighters in one spot for security reasons. We know the sky is full of planes,” the spokesman added.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis said that initial assessments were that more than 150 fighters had been killed at the training facility.<\/p>\n

The camp had been under surveillance for some time, Capt Davis said.<\/p>\n

“We know they were going to be departing the camp and they posed an imminent threat to US and [African Union] forces,” he added.<\/p>\n

A Somali official said their intelligence service cooperated with the US ahead of the air strikes, the Associated Press news agency reports.<\/p>\n

The US has a huge military base in neighbouring Djibouti.<\/p>\n

In a 2008 strike, it killed al-Shabab leader Adan Hashi Ayro. His successor Ahmed Godane was killed in a 2014 strike.<\/p>\n

{{Major al-Shabab attacks in 2016}}<\/p>\n

28 February – on a restaurant and busy junction in Baidoa killing at least 30 people<\/p>\n

26 February – on Mogadishu’s SYL hotel killing nine people<\/p>\n

21 January – on a restaurant at Mogadishu’s Lido beach killing 20 people<\/p>\n

15 January – on a Kenyan base in el-Ade that Somalia’s president said killed at least 180 soldiers.<\/p>\n

\"Al-Shabab<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Militant Islamist group al-Shabab has dismissed as exaggerated US claims that more than 150 of its fighters were killed in an air strike in Somalia.} The militants do not meet in such large numbers in “one spot” because of the threat of an attack, a spokesman said. He did not give details of casualties. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23783"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23783"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}