Five Somali soldiers were killed and an American military advisor was seriously wounded Monday in a car bomb attack in Somalia, which was claimed by the Islamic Youth Movement, according to security officials and Agence France-Presse.
The attacker detonated a car loaded with explosives at the entrance to a military base in the village of Janai Abdullah, 60 km outside the southern coastal city of Kismayo.
Muhammad Abdullah, a local security official, told France Press that the security forces shot the car, but it was not possible to stop it.
The Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack and claimed that 16 Somali soldiers and four Americans were killed.
Islamist insurgents often exaggerate the number of casualties in their attacks.
Somalia plunged into chaos following the fall of the tyrannical regime of Muhammad Siad Barre in Mogadishu in 1991, which led to a civil war for years that was followed by the rise of the Al-Shabaab movement, which at certain stages controlled large parts of the country and the capital, Mogadishu.
In August, ten civilians and a policeman were killed in an attack by Al-Shabaab gunmen on a hotel overlooking the sea in Mogadishu after they detonated a car bomb in front of it.
In the same month, at least four people were killed in an exchange of fire inside a central prison in Mogadishu after prisoners managed to seize weapons for his guards.
At least seven people were killed in a separate attack on 8 August after a car bomb exploded at a military base in Mogadishu where Somali army personnel are stationed.
In July, the commander of the Somali army, General Uduwa Yusuf Raji, survived an attempted suicide attack claimed by Al-Shabaab.
