The American military carried out a strike in a remote area of Somalia, killing five Al-Shabaab fighters, the US Africa Command said Thursday.
The “collective self-defense strike” near Bacadweyne, Somalia took place the previous day at the request of the country’s government, AFRICOM said in a statement.
“The initial assessment is the strike killed five Al-Shabaab fighters,” it added.
The leaders of Somalia and neighboring countries vowed at a summit earlier this month to “make the final push” against the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab, which has been waging an insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation for more than 15 years.
In recent months, the Somali army and local clan militias have retaken chunks of territory from the militants in an operation backed by US air strikes and an African Union force.
But Al-Shabaab still control parts of the countryside from where they have carried out numerous retaliatory attacks both in Somalia and in neighboring countries.