DHAKA: Somalia’s al-Shabab group says its fighters killed dozens of Kenyan troops when they attacked a remote military base in the country’s south, while Kenya’s army dismissed the report and said ‘scores’ of fighters were killed.

A spokesman for the armed group, which often launches attacks on African Union troops stationed in the Horn of Africa country, said on Friday that its fighters killed at least 57 Kenyans at the base in the town of Kulbiyow a day earlier.

“We are pursuing the Kenyan soldiers who ran away into the woods,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab’s military operation spokesman said about the attack near the Kenyan border.

“Two mujahideen rammed suicide car bombs into the base in Kulbiyow town before storming it,” he said, adding that as well as counting 57 Kenyan bodies, the group seized vehicles and weapons.

Al-Shabab said it lost fighters but did not give numbers.

The group also claimed to have taken over the base, run by the African Union Mission In Somalia (AMISOM).

The Kenyan army denied the claims, calling them ‘false’.

“Al-Shabab is known for propaganda, whatever they are saying about the attack is incorrect, including the number,” a Kenyan defence forces spokesman, Colonel Paul Njugunam, told Al Jazeera.

In January last year, al-Shabab said it had killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers in El Adde, a Somali camp near the border with Kenya.

Al-Shabab has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. The group was driven out from Mogadishu in 2011.

BDST: 1830 HRS, JAN 27, 2017
BD