The casualties were described as banana farmers by local inhabitants, and appear to have been shot while trying to flee the site of the operation, which officials say targeted commanders of the al-Shabaab
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the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...holy warrior group.
Somali intelligence officials say three men detained in the raid on a village in the Lower Shabelle region were senior myrmidons.
Mohammed Sheikh Mohamud, a farmer in the village of Ma’alinka, 37 miles south of Mogadishu, told the Guardian the operation started at about 1am last Thursday when "forces came down from a helicopter and started shooting the people in the farm".
Mohamud said he knew the five men killed. Two were tractor drivers at a banana farm, and three were cattle farmers.
Anisa Abdullahi, a mortuary attendant who inspected the bodies when they were brought into the Medina hospital in Mogadishu the day after the raid, said four of the men died from fatal bullet wounds to the back and one was killed by a wound to the chest.
"After checking, we found all died because of gun shots. The type of the weapon is one type, as the wound holes have similar sizes," Anisa Abdullahi told the Guardian.
There are no accounts of any sustained resistance to the special forces during the raid. Four Somali security officials and a senior officer with the Amisom regional force based in Mogadishu said they did not believe any weapons had been seized during the operation.
A second resident in the area said he just left the farm when he heard the first shot.
"It was past midnight and all was peaceful when the shooting began. Nobody fired at them as the people there were not armed. They shot the victims from close range and killed them," said Hassan Muhidin, a farmer.