Al Qaeda accused of killing 46 Ugandan troops in Somalia

Guardian:

Dozens of Ugandan soldiers are thought to have been killed when Islamist extremists attacked their base on Sunday in the latest of a series of bloody strikes against peacekeepers in Somalia.

Local officials told the Guardian that as many as 46 Ugandan troops, part of the 22,000-strong regional force in Somalia, died in the attack by the al-Qaida affiliated al-Shabaab movement in the town of Bulamarer, 80 miles south-west of the capital, Mogadishu, at around 9am local time.

Ugandan officials have said only four soldiers were killed in the attack, which was repulsed with heavy casualties among the extremists.

Such attacks are designed to hasten the departure of Amisom, the military and policing coalition under the authority of the African Union, which has been fighting al-Shabaab for more than a decade.

Al-Shabaab, which once controlled much of Somalia, wants to topple the western-backed government in Mogadishu.

Militants detonated a suicide car bomb at the gate of the Ugandan army base in Bulamarer before storming into the complex. A second suicide car bomb targeted a convoy of Ugandan army reinforcements coming from a nearby base.
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Al-Shabaab also attacked local civilians, setting houses and shops ablaze, witnesses said.

Halima Nur, a local shop-owner, said she ran away to seek shelter, but when she returned in the afternoon there was “nothing but ashes”.

“After raiding the military base, al-Shabaab came into our shops and burned down everything. My neighbour was also killed. I was the first to escape. I am lucky to be alive,” she told the Guardian.
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This sounds like a complex attack using vehicle bombs in place of artillery.   The Ugandan force appears to had had inadequate defenses for this kind of attack and its relief force also was taken by surprise.  Apparently, the troops also lacked air support.