Ugandan peacekeepers killed in jihadist attack in Somalia

Some 54 Ugandan peacekeepers died when militants besieged an African Union base in Somalia last week, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni said, in one of the worst recent attacks by Al-Shabaab jihadists in the war-torn country.

"We discovered the lifeless bodies of 54 fallen soldiers, including a commander," Museveni said in a Twitter post late Saturday.

He was speaking during a meeting with members of his governing National Resistance Movement party, the presidency told AFP news agency on Sunday.

The toll is one of the heaviest yet since pro-government forces backed by the AU force known as ATMIS launched an offensive against Al-Shabaab last August.

It was also a rare admission of a major military death toll by African Union members. 

Al-Shabaab, which has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia's fragile central government for more than a decade, claimed responsibility for the May 26 attack, saying it had overrun the base and killed 137 soldiers.  

The militants drove a car laden with explosives into the base in Bulo Marer, 120 kilometres southwest of the capital Mogadishu, leading to a gunfight, local residents and a Somali military commander said.

'Mistakes' made

Museveni had already said last week that "some of the soldiers there did not perform as expected and panicked" as some 800 assailants attacked.

That forced a withdrawal to a nearby base some nine kilometres away, he said, deploring "a missed opportunity to annihilate" the Qaeda-linked insurgents. 

"The mistake was made by two commanders, Maj. Oluka and Maj. Obbo, who ordered the soldiers to retreat," Museveni said on Saturday, adding that they would face charges in a court martial. 

However, "our soldiers demonstrated remarkable resilience and reorganised themselves, resulting in the recapture of the base".

ATMIS has so far not disclosed how many people died, but said it sent in helicopter gunships as reinforcement after the pre-dawn raid. 

The United States also said it conducted an airstrike near the base a day after it was attacked. 

US Africa Command said it "destroyed weapons and equipment unlawfully taken by Al-Shabaab fighters", without specifying when or where the weapons were stolen.

(-with AFP)