{The Somalia national army on Wednesday killed eight al-Shabab militants and recovered weapons and munitions during an operation in central Somalia, officials and residents said.}<\/p>\n
Somali Army Colonel Ahmed Mohamed Tredishe told VOA Somali the operation took place around Masagawa town in the Galgaduud region.<\/p>\n
“A specially trained unit of our soldiers have carried out the operation to flush out al-Shabab militants from a base near Masagawa,” Tredishe said. “Despite initial resistance, we managed to kill eight of them and recover dangerous weapons.”<\/p>\n
He said one government soldier died in the attack.<\/p>\n
Masagawa residents who spoke to VOA Somali on condition of anonymity said they heard loud explosions as government soldiers engaged in a gun battle with the militants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was around just before dawn this morning when we heard a fierce exchange of gunfire and loud explosions,\u201d one resident said. \u201cAs the day wore on, we found out government soldiers searching the al-Shabab military base with eight dead bodies of the militants lying in a pool of blood. We also saw a cache of assault rivals, munitions and hand grenades recovered by the soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The town has been under al-Shabab control for many years. The militant group has been imposing zakat, or a tax on the local population, forcing a number of militias from the local clan to aid the Somali Army operating in the region.<\/p>\n
The operation comes as Somalia\u2019s federal and regional state leaders are meeting in Baidoa, the Bay region\u2019s provincial capital, to discuss the security of national elections scheduled for August.<\/p>\n
“The leaders are here to discuss the country\u2019s upcoming elections, the security of the elections, the electoral process,” a spokesman for Somalia\u2019s president told VOA.<\/p>\n
The meeting brought together Somali President Hassan Sheilkh Mohamud and the leaders of Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug and South West State.<\/p>\n
Voice of America <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The Somalia national army on Wednesday killed eight al-Shabab militants and recovered weapons and munitions during an operation in central Somalia, officials and residents said.} Somali Army Colonel Ahmed Mohamed Tredishe told VOA Somali the operation took place around Masagawa town in the Galgaduud region. “A specially trained unit of our soldiers have carried out […]<\/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":[2475],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-voice-of-america"],"bylines":[{"id":2475,"name":"VOICE OF AMERICA","slug":"voice-of-america","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":2475,"name":"VOICE OF AMERICA","slug":"voice-of-america","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\/26295","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=26295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26295"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26295"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}