The United States military says one of its soldiers and two U.S. contractors were killed in an audacious assault by a Somali-based Islamist radical group at a U.S. and Kenyan military base in northern Kenya.
The extremist group, al-Shabaab, claimed to have destroyed airplanes in the dawn attack on an airfield at the base on Sunday morning. The U.S. military confirmed that it suffered damage to “infrastructure and equipment.” Photos showed huge plumes of smoke rising from the base.
An internal Kenyan police report, cited by the Associated Press, said the attack had destroyed a U.S. airplane, a Kenyan airplane, two U.S. helicopters and several U.S. vehicles.
In addition to the deaths, two U.S. defence department members were injured in the attack, and six contractor-operated aircraft were damaged, according to a U.S. military statement on Sunday night.
The Pentagon’s African command said the attack at Manda Bay Airfield, near the tourist town of Lamu and the border of Somalia, was repelled but the security situation was still “fluid” and the airfield was “still in the process of being fully secured.”
Analysts said the attack was unlikely to be retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. drone strike on Friday, since al-Shabaab has poor relations with Iran. But one analyst, Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group, said the attack may have been aimed at signalling to Iran that the Somali militant organization is “open for tactical alliances.”
The United States has launched dozens of air strikes on al-Shabaab targets in Somalia in recent years. The number of air strikes reached a record high in 2019.
The Kenyan military, in its own statement, said “four terrorist bodies” were “found” at the airstrip after the attack was repulsed. It said “some fuel tanks” were set on fire during the attack.
The Pentagon says it uses the military base in northern Kenya to provide “training and counter-terrorism support to East African partners.”
It complained that al-Shabaab had “exaggerated” the security situation. “Al-Shabaab resorts to lies, coercion and the exertion of force to bolster their reputation to create false headlines,” said Major-General William Gayler, director of operations for the U.S. Africa Command.
He noted that al-Shabaab had killed more than 80 people in a bombing attack in Mogadishu last week. “Al-Shabaab is a brutal terrorist organization,” Maj.-Gen. Gayler said.
With a file from Reuters
Geoffrey York