MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The Islamic State armed group attacked military bases in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland state overnight with suicide car and motorbike bombs, but government forces repelled the assault and airstrikes killed 70 militants, a military official said on Tuesday.
Puntland announced a major offensive against Islamic State and a rival Islamist group, the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, in December and claims to have since killed dozens of foreign fighters, captured several IS bases, and forced a senior commander to surrender.
“Puntland’s anti-terrorist forces knew the information and so foiled and shot dead the suicide bombers who were on foot, on bikes and cars,” Mohamud Fadhigo, a Puntland military spokesperson, told Reuters.
The United Arab Emirates and other Gulf nations have been supporting the training of Somalia’s armed forces in recent years.
“With the help of UAE air strikes, we also defeated the IS infantry. We killed about 70 militants,” Fadhigo said.
He said Puntland forces had also suffered casualties in the overnight attack, but declined to give a figure.
The Islamic State faction in Somalia has become an increasingly important part of its parent organisation’s worldwide network in recent years, and was the target of U.S. airstrikes earlier this month.
Somalia’s state news agency reported on Tuesday that security forces had repelled attacks on military positions in the Hagaaro and Togo-Jecel areas of Puntland’s Cal Miskaad mountains.
With an estimated 700 to 1,500 fighters, Islamic State’s Somalia wing has grown in recent years thanks to an influx of foreign fighters and increasing revenues. But it is still much smaller than al Shabaab, which controls large parts of southern and central Somalia.
(Reporting by Feisal Omar; Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Ros Russell)
