Somali armed group Al-Shabaab and African Union’s AMISOM force have each claimed to have killed large numbers of the other side’s combatants in a gun battle in central Somalia.
The town of Halgan, where Thursday’s clash occurred, lies in the Hiraan region of central Somalia, about 300km north of the capital Mogadishu.
The AMISOM force fighting in Somalia said its troops repelled an attack on one of its bases by Al-Shabaab and killed 110 fighters.
“AMISOM forces killed 110 Al-Shabaab and captured a large cache of weapons,” AMISOM spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Joe Kibet told Reuters, adding that a claim by Al-Shabaab that it had killed AU soldiers was a “falsehood”.