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| Africa Horn |
| Somali Islamists Claim to be Holding Uganda Soldiers Hostage |
| 2015-09-10 |
| [AnNahar] Somalia's Islamist Shabaab "The soldiers are in the mujahedeen jail," Shabaab front man Abdiaziz Abu Musab said in a statement broadcast on the Al-Qaeda-linked group's Radio Andalus, but gave no further details on the alleged hostages. "They are healthy, we will provide their names, ranks and other details very soon," he added. Uganda has said 12 troops with the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) died in the attack, with no prisoners taken, after Shabaab bully boyz overran a military camp in southern Somalia on September 1. However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... Western military sources said at least 50 AU soldiers from Uganda were believed to have been killed and another 50 were missing. Ugandan army front man Paddy Ankunda responded that "Western sources on fatalities in Somalia are wrong." AMISOM has in the past denied and downplayed soldier casualties. Somalia's Al-Qaeda affiliate, which has recently lost a string of key bases in the face of an AMISOM offensive, said the attack was Dire Revenge for the killing of seven civilians by Ugandan troops at a wedding in the town of Merka in July. Witnesses said the Shabaab took over the camp, looting weapons stores and loading corpses onto trucks. The group has previously gathered the bodies of dead soldiers for use in propaganda videos. Still photographs from a Shabaab propaganda video of the attack show fighters looting weapons and raising the Islamist black flag over the base. Several dead bodies are shown, but there is no evidence of the 50 men the Shabaab boasted of killing. The Shabaab have captured foreign armed forces before, including Kenyans and a French security agent, Denis Allex. Some have been killed, others released unharmed. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |