{"id":15677,"date":"2019-01-20T04:33:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T04:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mustaqbalradio.net\/?p=15677"},"modified":"2019-01-20T04:33:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T04:33:23","slug":"ethiopia-readies-massive-offensive-on-al-shabab-in-somalia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/ethiopia-readies-massive-offensive-on-al-shabab-in-somalia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia readies \u2018massive offensive\u2019 on al-Shabab in Somalia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ethiopian National Defense Force on Saturday confirmed an ambush by al-Shabab extremists on an Ethiopian peacekeeping convoy in neighboring Somalia and said Ethiopian forces are preparing a “massive offensive” in response.<\/p>\n

The statement rejected an al-Shabab claim that several Ethiopian troops were killed.<\/p>\n

The ambush was reported as the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the deadly hotel assault in Nairobi and deadly attacks on forces inside Somalia.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia contributes troops to a multinational African Union peacekeeping mission. It also has troops in Somalia independently under Ethiopian army command.<\/p>\n

\n

he statement said the ambush occurred when the convoy was traveling Burhakaba to Baidoa in Somalia’s southwest.<\/p>\n

A separate statement by the AU force said the ambush occurred on Friday and AU troops returned fire, killing four extremists and wounding several others.<\/p>\n

Three soldiers with the AU force were wounded, the statement said.<\/p>\n

Al-Shabab, which formed more than a decade ago in response to the presence of Ethiopian forces inside Somalia, among other reasons, has never managed to orchestrate a major attack inside the Ethiopian heartland, though it has carried out major attacks in neighboring Kenya.<\/p>\n

In late October, al-Shabab claimed killing 30 Ethiopian troops inside Somalia. Weeks before that, Ethiopian state media outlets reported that the Ethiopian Air Force killed 70 al-Shabab members after the extremist group tried to attack Ethiopian forces.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0bellinghamherald.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ethiopian National Defense Force on Saturday confirmed an ambush by al-Shabab extremists on an Ethiopian peacekeeping convoy in neighboring Somalia and said Ethiopian forces are preparing a “massive offensive” in response. The statement rejected an al-Shabab claim that several Ethiopian troops were killed. The ambush was reported as the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab claimed responsibility for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}