• Al-Shabab rebels attacked a Somali military base in Galgaduud.
• The army repelled the onslaught on the camp holding national and local forces in Qayib.
• The raid’s casualties were unclear.

The defense ministry said al-Shabab rebels attacked a Somali military base in central Galgaduud on Monday, days after government forces secured the area.

Abdullahi Ali Anod, defense ministry spokesperson, told state-run SONNA that the army repelled the onslaught on the camp holding national and local forces in Qayib, a village captured from al-Shabab last week.

Ahmed Hassan, a military soldier in Bahdo, told Reuters that two suicide vehicle explosives at 5am local time were followed by hours of fierce battle.

Hassan stated the raid’s casualties were unclear.

Al-Shabab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said suicide vehicle explosives started the Qayib onslaught before fighters assaulted from multiple directions. Abu Musab said fighters killed soldiers and grabbed weapons and military vehicles.

Over the past three months, government forces and clan militias have retaken territory from al-Shabab.

In response, al-Shabab killed at least 100 people in twin vehicle bombings at the education ministry in Mogadishu on October 29, the bloodiest blasts in five years.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber near a Mogadishu military training center killed five and wounded 11.

Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-allied military group battling in Somalia for over a decade, wants to overthrow the government and rule according to Islamic law.

African Union peacekeepers expelled its men from Mogadishu in 2011. It still controls parts of Somalia’s countryside and has increased attacks since President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in May and declared a “all-out war” against the group.

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