{"id":24020,"date":"2016-03-20T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T02:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/kdf-soldiers-kill-21-al-shabaab-militants-in\/"},"modified":"2016-03-20T02:00:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T02:00:08","slug":"kdf-soldiers-kill-21-al-shabaab-militants-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/kdf-soldiers-kill-21-al-shabaab-militants-in\/","title":{"rendered":"KDF soldiers kill 21 Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers have killed 21 Al-Shabaab militants in a shootout in Lower Juba Region in Somalia and recovered weapons.}<\/p>\n<p>Two KDF soldiers also died in the shootout on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>The KDF also recovered 19 AK-47 rifles, three rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and a pistol.<\/p>\n<p>The KDF spokesman Col David Obonyo said that a convoy of KDF soldiers operating under the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) were on their way to Afmadow when they engaged Al-Shabaab militants who had laid an ambush in the Lower Juba Region.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRegrettably, KDF suffered two fatalities and five injuries,\u201d Col Obonyo said.<\/p>\n<p>During the fierce engagement, Col Obonyo said, the overpowered Al-Shabaab militants resorted to the use of improvised explosive devices (IED), damaging one of the KDF vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>Five soldiers were injured and were evacuated.<\/p>\n<p>SOLDIERS EVACUATED<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe injured were evacuated and [are] receiving medical attention,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday last week, the KDF also killed 19 Al-Shabaab militants in Afmadow.<\/p>\n<p>The KDF personnel recovered a vehicle, 10 AK-47 rifles and three RPGs.<\/p>\n<p>The militants are said to have planned to attack a camp occupied by the Amisom and Somali National Army (SNA) troops in Afmadow, Lower Juba Region.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Al-Shabaab terrorists had approached the camp at night with the intention to attack and cut off the SNA from Amisom (KDF) camp.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKDF soldiers on patrol identified the militants and engaged them in a fierce battle,\u201d Col Obonyo said.<\/p>\n<p>Last Wednesday\u2019s shooting came just two weeks after a US drone strike killed more than 150 Al-Shabaab militants at a training camp where a large scale attack was being planned.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know they were going to be departing the camp and they posed an imminent threat to US and [African Union] forces,&#8221; spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11041 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/kdf-pic.jpg\" alt=\"KDF soldiers on patrol in Afmadow, Somalia. On Saturday, March 19, 2016, KDF soldiers killed 21 Al-Shabaab militants in a shootout in Lower Juba Region in Somalia and recovered weapons. Two Kenyan soldiers also died in the shootout. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers have killed 21 Al-Shabaab militants in a shootout in Lower Juba Region in Somalia and recovered weapons.} Two KDF soldiers also died in the shootout on Saturday afternoon. The KDF also recovered 19 AK-47 rifles, three rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and a pistol. The KDF spokesman Col David Obonyo [&hellip;]<\/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":[99],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","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":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","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":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24020","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=24020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24020"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24020"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}