Security forces from the Somali breakaway state of Puntland said Monday they had raided an obscure but growing al-Qaeda linked militia whose leader is on a UN Security Council watchlist.
Three Puntland soldiers were killed in the pre-dawn raid on cave-riddled mountains near Galgala in western Puntland, where officials say local warlord Mohamed Said Atom has been building a force of several hundred militants.
“The operation was launched early this morning. So far, we have lost three soldiers. Seven were also wounded,” Colonel Abdurahman Ali, a security official in Puntland’s economic capital of Bosasso, told AFP.