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MOGADISHU, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has said its troops killed at least 110 Al-Shabaab militants during an raid by the Islamist group on its military base in central Somalia early Thursday.
The militants stormed the military base run by Ethiopian troops serving with AMISOM in Halgan village, about 260 km north of the capital Mogadishu.
AMISOM force spokesperson, Joe Kibet, told Xinhua the troops, alongside the Somali army, repulsed the militants after "heavy fighting".
Kibet said AMISOM was still counting the militants killed in the pre-dawn attack, but "the latest was that 110 Al-Shabaab were killed."
Several other militants escaped with severe injuries, he added.
Meanwhile, Somalia's Interior Minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed said at least 120 militants were killed in the fighting.
He told the media that five civilians were killed and nine others injured in the attack.
Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it has killed 60 Ethiopian soldiers.
Al-Shabaab has stormed AMISOM bases run by troops from Burundi, Uganda and Kenya in the past year. It claimed to have killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers in an attack in January, but Kenya has not confirmed the death toll.
AMISOM forces have been helping the Somali government battle Al-Shabbab for years, driving the militants to rural areas in southern Somalia, but the group still stages periodic attacks in the country.
Last week, Al-Shabaab gunmen killed 16 people in an attack on a hotel in Mogadishu. Enditem
