KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni mentioned late on Sunday there had been casualties throughout an assault by Somalia’s Islamist group al Shabaab on a army base manned by Ugandan peacekeepers within the Horn of African nation on Friday.
Museveni didn’t say what number of troopers had been killed or wounded but it surely was the primary official admission of losses within the assault among the many Ugandan troops who’re serving within the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
“Condolences to the nation and the households of those that died,” Museveni mentioned in a press release, including the nation’s army had arrange a panel to analyze what occurred.
Al Shabaab has since 2006 has been combating to topple Somalia’s Western-backed authorities and set up its personal rule primarily based on a strict interpretation of Islamic legislation.
Museveni mentioned in the course of the assault “a few of the troopers there didn’t carry out as anticipated and panicked, which disorganized them and the al Shabaab took benefit of that to overrun the bottom and destroy a few of the tools.”
The assailants numbered about 800 and in the course of the assault the Ugandan troops had been compelled to withdraw to a close-by base, about 9 kilometres away, he mentioned.
Al Shabaab fighters focused the bottom early on Friday in Bulamarer, 130 km (80 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu.
Al Shabaab mentioned in a press release on the time that it had carried out suicide bomb assaults and killed 137 troopers on the base.
There was no fast official affirmation of the casualties. Al Shabaab tends to offer casualty figures in assaults that differ from these issued by the authorities.
ATMIS has to this point not mentioned what number of troops had been killed or wounded within the assault.
The peacekeeping mission has been in Somalia since 2007 and helps to defend Somalia’s central authorities in opposition to the Islamists.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; enhancing by Jane Merriman)