Mogadishu - Somalia said on Thursday that almost 200 Kenyan peacekeepers were killed in an al-Shabaab attack on an African Union military base in Somalia last month in what could be the extremist group's largest success against the AU mission.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told Somali Cable TV that about 180 Kenyans were killed when al-Shabaab Islamists stormed the base in the southern village of el-Adde on January 15.
Al-Shabaab at the time of the attack had put the death toll at 100, and while Kenya has not given a death toll, if the lower al-Shabaab death toll is accurate, the attack would still count as one of the most devastating Islamist attacks on AU troops in Somalia.
“When about 180 boys, just nearly 200 Kenyan troops, are killed in an area inside Somalia, it is really compulsory for me as the president of Somalia to go to Kenya to say, 'Very sorry for your losses,'“ Mohamud told the Somali television station in Istanbul.
Kenyan troops form part of a 20 000-strong AU contingent helping Somalia battle al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with the international al-Qaeda terrorist network.
DPA