Off the wire
• UNICEF warns sharp increase in number of children used in suicide attacks in Africa  • Roundup: Zimbabwe's Mugabe clarifies controversial ownership policy to restore market confidence  • Ronaldo hat-trick as Madrid reach Champions League semis  • 1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks tick up on surging oil  • Morocco arrests 5 suspects linked to cannabis smuggling  • Mozambican gov't declares red alert as 1.5 mln facing food insecurity  • Ten-fold increase of child suicide attacks in Boko Haram-affected countries: UNICEF  • Arrival of asylum seekers should be seen as opportunity: ICRC President  • Four killed in Ugandan capital building collapse: police  • Chinese firm to build 80mln USD ceramic tiles plant in Ghana  
You are here: 　 Home

U.S. airstrikes kill 12 al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia: Pentagon

Xinhua, April 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Pentagon on Tuesday said 12 militants of al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida-affiliated group in Somalia, were killed in U.S. airstrikes this week.

The U.S. military conducted two airstrikes late Monday evening and early Tuesday morning on an al-Shabaab camp in southern Somalia due to an "imminent threat" against U.S. troops in Somalia, said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis at a news briefing.

Further details about the strikes were not available at the moment.

Despite its involvement in assisting the Somalian government and African Union forces in battling al-Shabaab, an extremist group responsible for dozens of terror attacks in east Africa, particularly Kenya, the U.S. military so far was not launching regular airstrikes against the group in Somalia.

In March, the U.S. military conducted an airstrike against a training camp of the group about 193 km north of Mogadishu, the largest city in Somalia, killing about 150 al-Shabaab fighters. Endit