Fri­day, May 15

A lo­cal of­fi­cial in south­ern So­ma­lia says al-Shabab mil­i­tants have cap­tured two gov­ern­ment bases in the Lower Sha­belle re­gion.

Lower Sha­belle Gov­er­nor Ab­dulka­dir Mo­hamed Nur told VOA So­mali ser­vice that heav­ily armed mil­i­tants launched at­tacks on the towns of Awd­he­gle and Mubarak in the early morn­ing hours on Fri­day. The sites are about 75 kilo­me­ters west of the So­mali cap­i­tal, Mo­gadishu.

Nur said sev­eral gov­ern­ment sol­diers were killed in the at­tack. He said he is mo­bi­liz­ing troops to re­take the ter­ri­tory.

The at­tack sites were guarded by African Union troops un­til two months ago. As AU troops va­cated the area, se­cu­rity re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were handed over to So­mali sol­diers.

Last week, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry paid an un­prece­dented visit to So­ma­lia, where he said the U.S. would be will­ing to help build So­ma­li­a’s na­tional army and help in­te­grate re­gional forces into it.