Mogadishu, Somalia – Al-Shabaab militants targeted a military convoy belonging to the Somali Special Forces, known as Danab, as it passed along the road linking the city of Afgoye to Baledogle Air Base in Lower Shabelle State, southern Somalia.
According to field reports, the attack, which was carried out via a powerful roadside bomb,
destroyed a military vehicle and killed and wounded all those on board.
This comes in the latest escalation of the movement’s operations against government forces and foreign forces supporting them.
This operation comes at a time when Al-Shabaab attacks have doubled during 2025,
The al-Qaeda-linked group has launched dozens of operations in Shabelle, Hiran and Galmudug states.
Targeting military bases and supply points of the Somali army and African Union forces,
It also carried out a series of suicide bombings in the capital, Mogadishu, and cities in the south.
Resulting in dozens of deaths among soldiers and civilians.
During the first half of this year, the movement claimed responsibility for specific attacks against army bases in Bay and Bakool states.
It announced the downing of US-made drones.
While the Somali government, backed by Turkish Bayraktar drones, intensified its airstrikes on the movement’s positions,
Which led to the killing of a number of its field commanders.
The latest Afgoye attack is part of the movement’s tactics of ambushes and remotely-planted explosions,
Which aims to exhaust the “Danab” special forces, which form the spearhead of ground operations against the movement’s strongholds.
Observers believe that the return of intense activity by Al-Shabaab in recent months
represents an attempt to reassert its presence after losing a number of vital areas in the center of the country.
Amid warnings of the redeployment of its elements into previously cleared areas, this threatens to renew the cycle of violence in the south.
