Editor TLN
May 28. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has lamented a certain lack of preparation among the military in charge of repelling the attack launched last Friday by the terrorist organization Al Shabaab against a military base of the African Union mission (ATMIS), managed by soldiers. ugandans
Although there is still no official balance, military sources consulted by the Ugandan media agree that the attack against the Bula-Marer advanced base has been one of the most serious in recent months against the ATMIS forces in Somalia, in through the “total war” declared by the country’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, against the terrorist organization.
In a message posted on his official Twitter account, Museveni reports that at least 800 Al Shabaab militiamen were involved in the assault on the base, an attack so powerful that it caused “some of the military to not carry out their work as expected of them.” , and they panicked.”
This chaos generated a “disorganization that Al Shabaab took advantage of to seize the base and destroy part of the equipment”, added the Ugandan president, who also confirmed that “many soldiers decided to escape to another advanced base located about nine kilometers away”.
Museveni lamented that “all this panic was totally unnecessary” since the base forces managed to repel the initial phase of the attack carried out, as usual in the case of Al Shabaab, by a unit of suicide bombers. “Our military had managed to destroy three vehicles loaded with explosives before they entered the forward base. These suicide bombers, or whatever, ended up being forced to set off their explosives before entering,” he said.
The president has not given casualty figures pending the conclusions of a military investigative commission that is already gathering information on the incident. “The full facts will eventually come to light, including details about the casualties,” he promised, before launching a criticism of the organization of the mission.
“It seems criminal to me, and I say it to all those involved, that they send people who are not properly prepared for this mission to such a combat scenario,” he lamented.
The terror organization has claimed that at least 137 soldiers were killed in the attack, but the group is known for inflating its numbers for propaganda purposes. Neither ATMIS nor Somalia have yet released official figures while the commander of the Ugandan Army, General Kayanja Muhanga, spent all of Saturday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to assess the consequences of the attack.
