Al-Shabaab used three bombs in African Union base attack

Al-Shabaab Islamist militants attacked Kenyan peacekeepers in Somalia last week with three powerful bombs, Kenya's army chief said on Thursday.

Al-Shabaab claimed to have killed 100 Kenyan soldiers on Friday in an attack on an African Union military base in the southern village of El-Ade.

Army chief Samson Mwathethe said each of the bombs used by al-Shabaab in the attack was as powerful as the explosives used to kill more than 200 people in an Islamist bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998.

"You can imagine what impact the three of those had in that small place," he told reporters.

Mwathethe said several soldiers who had been in El-Ade remained missing and that the army would only give a death toll after conducting an investigation into the attack.

Kenya bombed southern Somalia after Friday's attack, with Somali officials saying 19 civilians were killed. Mwathethe said the bombings had killed an al-Shabaab commander.

Kenyan troops form part of a 20,000-strong AU contingent helping Somalia battle al-Shabaab Sunni insurgents.

Source: DPA