Araweelo News Network

Mogadishu(ANN)-At least four Somali soldiers have been killed and five more injured outside a military base near the capital, Mogadishu, in a roadside bombing claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab terrorists.

The Tuesday explosion took place as authorities in Kenya announced that Kenyan troops serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, killed seven al-Shabab militants in a border district inside Somalia.

According to a statement by Kenyan Defense Forces, the al-Shabab militants were killed during an operation to flush them out of the southern town of Badhaadhe, where the group had taken over a police station and a mosque. It added that the troops recovered rifles, ammunition and two 81-mm bombs among other items.

The bombing was carried out in the town of Afgoye, nearly 30 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu, one day after the terrorist group attempted an armed attack on the town that was repulsed by government soldiers, said police officer Major Osman Abdulle.

“We planted the bomb last night. At least seven soldiers died,” said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, the military operations spokesman of al-Shabab. The group has been waging an insurgency and terror campaign across the African country, aiming to overthrow the Western-backed government in the capital.

The group once held large swathes of Somalia, including Mogadishu, before being driven out of the capital in 2011 and losing further ground. It continues, however, to pose a major threat to the government’s rule