Somalia attack reportedly claims 180 Kenyan troops

MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least 180 Kenyan soldiers were killed in Somalia in an extremist attack on their base in January by al-Shabab, Somalia's president said, which would represent a historically high battlefield loss for Kenyan forces.

Between 180 and 200 Kenyan soldiers were killed in the Jan. 15 attack, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said. He was speaking in an interview on a Somali cable TV channel while attending a conference in Turkey. Kenya's government has concealed the death toll.

Kenya's military spokesman, Col. David Obonyo, denied the figures given by the Somali president but refused again to give an official death toll.

The Kenyan government has managed to conceal the death toll of the attack because officials reached out to media house editors and asked them not to put out unofficial tolls as this would create fear, an editor with a leading radio station said. The editor insisted on anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject.