Heavily armed Al-Shabaab militants attacked a strategic island in southern Somalia on Wednesday, clashing with state paramilitary forces stationed in the semi-autonomous Jubaland region, officials and the Islamist group said.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab has been fighting an insurgency against the Somali state for around two decades.
The Jubaland administration said the attack had been repelled, but the militant group said it had overrun a military base on the island of Kuday, which has served as an operational base for the group in the past.
A traditional elder in the port city of Kismayo told AFP he had received information indicating that the militants “besieged the island after storming the military base on the outskirts of the town” of Kuday.
But he said, “It is difficult to know what exactly happened so far”.
He said several boats had been sent from Kismayo to help the troops, but that the telephone network had gone down on the island shortly after the Jubaland forces had sent a distress call.
“The security forces inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and destroyed several military vehicles they used in the attack,” the Jubaland administration said in a statement.
Al-Shabaab, meanwhile, said its fighters had “managed to take full control of three military bases inside and outside of the island”.
Kuday Island, which is around 130 kilometers (81 miles) southwest of Kismayo, was liberated from Al-Shabaab in early 2015 by members of the Kenyan Defence Forces and the Somali National Army.
