Somali Army Kills 14 Militants from Al-Shabab

Fourteen terrorists were killed when the Somali army responded to a surprise attack by the armed "Al-Shabab" movement on the southern city of Balad this morning.

The Army Radio cited sources in the Armed Forces Command, saying that al-Shabab terrorist movement had been severely defeated.

According to local sources, the militants returned holding 14 bodies of the terrorists, including the regional leader of Al-Shabab in the region.

The incident came two days after three Somali military officers were killed and two others injured along with an American service member in a bombing in southern country on Monday, the authorities said, the latest example of a deadly insurgency that has continued to wreak havoc in the Horn of Africa nation.

Officials in Jubaland State said an explosives-laden pickup truck exploded around 8 a.m. at a military outpost in the Jana Abdalle area in the Lower Juba region of southern Somalia.

Once again, the attack seemed to be responding to another previous one when Somali forces, with the support of American military personnel, reclaimed the area from the Somali terrorist group Al Shabab.

The authorities said the area, about 37 miles from the port city of Kismayo, had been used by the group as a hub to raise funds by taxing and extorting civilians moving across the region.