NAIROBI
At least 60 militants from the Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab group were killed Saturday in a Kenyan airstrike on Gulagadud in Somalia's Jubba region, south-west of the capital Mogadishu, the Kenyan army said.
"Initial battle assessment indicates that 60 Al-Shabaab militants have been killed in the attack," the Kenya Defense Force said in a statement.
According to the statement, several militants were injured in the attack, while others retreated to Jilib, 100km north of Somalia's Indian Ocean port town of Kismayu, which is controlled by African peacekeepers.
Saturday's airstrike came less than four months after Kenya forces launched airstrikes on Anole and Kuday towns in Lower Jubba region, south of Middle Jubba, killing at least 80 Al-Shabaab militants.
Kenya first deployed its troops in Somalia in 2011 following the kidnapping of foreign tourists by Al-Shabaab militants.
Later, Kenyan troops joined the African Union peacekeeping mission AMISOM in the civil war-torn country.
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.
Somalia, a long-troubled country in the Horn of Africa, has remained in the grip of on-again, off-again violence since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.
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