APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) said it has thwarted an attempted attack against members of its peacekeeping contingent by al- Shabaab fighters in an area called Robdirre inside Somalia.
In its first official statement issued Wednesday after the alleged killing of more than 167 Ethiopian soldiers by the militants at the Ethio-Somali border, ENDF said the latest attempted attack inside Somalia was foiled.
“al-Shabaab forces deployed three explosive-laden vehicles and 12 explosive-armed militants, as well as more than 450 of other members but destroyed by the Ethiopian defense forces in the area,” ENDF’s statement quoted Colonel Fayisa Ayele, the commander of its contingent in the troubled Somalia, as saying.
The militant group last Sunday claimed it killed 167 Ethiopian soldiers and captured medical personnel in an ambush.
Images circulating on social media displayed dead soldiers wearing Ethiopian army uniforms.
This followed reports that al-Shabaab militants attacked convoys carrying Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia’s southwestern Bakool region.
The Ethiopian army’s statement neither mentioned the attack in Bakool region nor stated casualty figures about its soldiers at Robdirre.
An official of the Somalia federal forces operating in Huddur district of Bakool region was quoted by a local media as saying that more than 55 members of the al-shabaab group were killed in subsequent joint counteroffensive by Somali and Ethiopian troops.
MG/as/APA