MOGADISHU, Somalia – At least six African Union soldiers, including bomb disposal experts have been killed in separate bomb and gun attacks in southern regions of Somalia.
The first attack took place on Wednesday in Wajid town of Bakol region after a roadside bomb struck an armored personnel carrier with African Union soldiers from Ethiopia.
In an online statement, al Shabab – an al Qaeda – linked group claimed the responsibility for the blast, saying it had killed at least soldiers onboard.
The group says the second attack targeted African Union peacekeeping troops from Uganda in Adow Dibile area near Afgoye town, some 30km south of the capital Mogadishu.
The extremist group says three bomb disposal experts were killed in an ambush attack.
There was no immediate comment from African Union mission in Somalia [AMISOM] over the claims made by al Shabab.
On Wednesday, Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble on Wednesday chaired an emergency security meeting at his office following several attacks by al Shabab in Mogadishu.
The meeting, which was attended by Somali police and military chiefs and commanders from AMISOM called for a united front against the al Qaeda linked group.
The meeting came a day after Al-Shabaab carried out grenade attacks on six police stations in the capital, the second of its kind since last week.
Somalia is facing a security and election crisis that could plunge the country to the brink as the outgoing president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo failed to make a smooth transfer of power at his term’s end.
