Somalian Islamist militant group al-Shabaab yesterday said “Western” forces attacked a house in one of its coastal bases in the town of Barawe under the cover of dark, killing one rebel fighter.
Foreign forces landed on the beach at Barawe, about 180km south of Mogadishu, and launched an assault that drew gunfire from rebel fighters, said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, spokesman for al-Shabaab’s military operations.
It was not immediately clear why the Barawe base had been targeted specifically, nor whether the assault was related to the attack on a Kenyan mall two weeks ago, which the group said it carried out and which killed at least 67.
Western navies patrol the sea off Somalia — mired in conflict for more than two decades — and have in the past launched strikes on land from warships.
No foreign military units typically involved in such operations in Somalia have said they were involved in the strike. One Western official in the region declined to comment.
Kenyan forces stationed in the southern parts of Somalia were unavailable for comment.
“Westerners in boats attacked our base at Barawe beach and one was martyred from our side,” Musab said.
“No planes or helicopters took part in the fight. The attackers left weapons, medicine and stains of blood, we chased them,” he said.
Many residents said they were woken by the noise of heavy gunfire late on Friday night.
“We were awoken by heavy gunfire last night, we thought an al-Shabaab base at the beach was captured,” Sumira Nur, a mother of four said from Barawe yesterday.
“We also heard sounds of shells, but we do not know where they landed. We don’t have any other information,” she said.
Although the US does not report its activities in Somalia, it has used drones in recent years to kill Somali and foreign al-Shabaab fighters.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS