Kenya Defence Force destroys Islamist al-Shabaab base in Somalia killing 15 militants

Kenya destroyed a Somalian base used by al-Shabaab rebels, killing 15 fighters, it announced on Sunday (25 October). The Islamic extremist rebels have targeted Kenya with repeated terror attacks in response to Kenyan military involvement in Somalia.

Kenya Defence Force (KDF) spokesman Col. David Obonyo said troops under the African Union mission in Somalia launched a dawn attack on the base at Yantooy, by Jubba River in southern Somalia. Two boats the rebels were using to cross the river were also destroyed.

Yantooy had been the main base that al-Shabaab uses to cross the river from its Jilib base in the Lower Shabelle region of the country before infiltrating the Lower Jubba region near the Kenyan border to carry out attacks.

Earlier this month, al-Shabaab threatened it will greet British troops with "fire" and warned it will display beheaded corpses of British soldiers on the internet, in comments made several days after British Prime Minister David Cameron announced Britain will deploy troops in Somalia to help in the fight against terrorism.

Since Kenya deployed troops in Somalia to counter-attack the militants in 2011, the terror group has carried out a series of deadly attacks on the neighbouring country. In one of its deadliest attacks, the group killed 148 people during an assault on a university college in Garissa, Kenya, in April 2015. At least 67 people were killed during another attack and subsequent four-day siege at Westgate shopping mall in the capital, Nairobi, in September 2013.