Kenya bombs Al Shabaab training camp
Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab recruits walk down a street in Mogadishu in 2012. Analysts say most of the group’s foreign fighters come from Kenya, where a terrorist attack on an upscale shopping mall killed at least 68 people this weekend.
Kenyan warplanes bombed an Al Shabaab training camp Thursday in Diinsoor, southwestern Somalia, military officials said.
The Al Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall on Sept. 21 that left 67 people dead.
More from GlobalPost: More Westgate Mall attack details emerge. And they're not comforting
The military said its strike killed many of the camp’s 300 recruits, but the exact number of dead was not yet known. Four improvised fighting vehicles and a weapons cache were also destroyed, it claimed.
Al-Shabaab’s senior media officer told Reuters that no such attack had occurred. "No military camp of ours in Somalia was air struck or attacked," he said.
"This military operation is not an isolated one, but we will continue targeting Al Shabaab camps in the near future" Col. Cyrus Oguna, spokesman for the Kenyan Defense Force, told CNN.
On Monday, a Kenyan-operated drone killed two senior Al Shabaab officials traveling in a car in Somalia.
The story you just read is not locked behind a paywall because listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Now more than ever, we need your help to support our global reporting work and power the future of The World. Can we count on you?