NAIROBI
At least 49 Al-Shabaab militants were killed in a Kenyan airstrike on two camps of the militant group southwest of Somali capital Mogadishu, the Kenyan military said Friday.
"Kenya Defense Forces troops under the [African Union peacekeeping mission] AMISOM operations carried out an air strike on Al-Shabaab camps at Hargeisayere and Minyonta in Jilib," the military said in a statement.
Jilib is 100 kilometers north of Somalia's Indian Ocean port town of Kismayu, which is controlled by African peacekeepers.
"During the attack, 49 Al-Shabaab militias were killed, among them five senior commanders," the Kenyan military said.
It added that 27 militants were also injured and two technical vehicles were destroyed in the attack.
The latest airstrike comes less than a week after Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto announced that Kenyan troops had killed 115 Al-Shabaab militants following a bus attack in the north-eastern county of Mandera, which left 28 people dead.
Kenya has recently been hit by a spate of attacks that authorities typically blame on the Al-Shabaab militant group, which demands that Nairobi withdraw its troops from Somalia.
The group has vowed to launch attacks inside Kenya after the East African country sent its troops to Somalia in 2011.
Recently, the group has lost ground considerably to the African Union troops and Somalia army, having lost its main base and source of revenue in the Barawe Port.
Somalia has been gripped by on and off violence since the Horn of Africa nation was plunged into civil war following the ouster of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
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