From Reuters

Kenya’s military has killed more than 30 al Shabaab militants and commanders, a spokesman said, in its first major air strikes in Somalia since the retaliation for the Islamists’ attack on a Nairobi shopping mall.

Kenyan fighter jets hit a camp at Garbarahey in the Gedo region on Thursday evening, where the militants, who profess links to al Qaeda, were holding a meeting, the military said.

Al Shabaab has been weakened by African Union troops over the past two years, ushering in some stability in many parts of the Horn of Africa country after a campaign of cross-border raids and kidnappings of Westerners and security forces.

However, the rebels, who have waged a seven-year insurgency seeking to impose a strict interpretation of sharia law in Somalia, stunned the world in September when they attacked an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people.

Thursday’s air raids were the first since October, when Kenyan warplanes bombed targets held by the Islamists in reprisal for the attack on the mall.

“There are remnants of al Shabaab that are still trying to draw back the gains that have been made (against them),” Kenyan military spokesman Colonel Cyrus Oguna told Reuters on Friday.

“Those remnants are the ones we are focusing on now.”

Written by Duncan Miriri | Read more at Reuters