US drone strike kills 150 Al-Shabaab militants in Hiiraan, Pentagon

At least 150 Al-Shabaab militants were killed in a US drone strike in Hiiraan region some 120 miles north of Somali capital of Mogadishu Saturday, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis has said.

Captain Davis said the militants were completing training and preparing for a large scale attack.

“The fighters were there training and were training for a large-scale attack. We know they were going to be departing the camp and they posed an imminent threat to US and African Union forces,” said Captain Davis.

Captain Davis said the camp had been under surveillance for some time and added there were civilian casualties.

The site of the camp is a village called Raso, some 70 km west of Buluburde in Hiiran region. The region has been under Ethiopian and Djibouti troops under the African Union backed force, Amisom.

The strike is one of the major assaults by the US against the group after the September 2014 hellfire which killed Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane followed by another in December of the same year which terminated Al-Shabaab intelligence commander Abdishakur Tahlil.

Kenyan forces last month reported to have killed Al-Shabaab intelligence commander Mahad Karate and about 42 other militants who were on a pass out parade in southern Somalia.