Agence France-Presse:
Ethiopia announced on Wednesday that it had thwarted an attack by the extremist Al-Shabaab movement on a town located on the border with Somalia.
A tweet released by the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Ethiopian army “stopped the attackers during their advance before they could wreak havoc.”
The Ethiopian town of Dolo is less than three kilometers from the Somali town of the same name.
The ministry’s statement said that the Ethiopian National Defense Forces “neutralised suicide bombers and destroyed weapons that the terrorist group was about to use.”
Al-Shabaab, linked to al-Qaeda, has been fighting the Somali government supported by the international community since 2007.
And the movement announced through its communication channels that it had carried out two suicide bombings at an Ethiopian military base on the Somali side of the border, according to the “Site Intelligence Group” website.
According to the movement, the first attack targeted the “local military command headquarters,” while the second attack targeted a weapons and ammunition store.
“Al-Shabab” stressed that “the two operations resulted in a large number of dead and wounded.”
The movement usually exaggerates the outcome of the attacks it announces for propaganda purposes.
An African Union force drove al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu in 2011, but its jihadists continue to launch attacks on civilian, political and military targets.
The movement targets Ethiopia in response to Addis Ababa sending troops to Somalia as part of the African Union force to defeat the jihadists.
In mid-2022, Al-Shabaab fighters attacked a number of Ethiopian camps at the border between the two countries.
At the time, the authorities of the Ethiopian region, located near the Somali border, said that they had killed about 100 movement fighters who had infiltrated into Ethiopia.