At least 10 people were killed and more than 20 others injured Friday when al-Shabab extremists attacked a town that sits on the Somali side of the border with Ethiopia, according to witnesses and officials.
"The militants launched a surprise dawn attack on the town of Aato in the Bakol region of Somalia this morning [Friday], triggering fierce gun battles with a joint Ethiopian paramilitary Liyu police officers and Somali forces," witnesses who requested anonymity fearing reprisals told VOA.
At the time of the attack, members of Somalia's parliament were in the town to distribute food aid sent from Mogadishu to drought-affected residents. It was not clear if the government delegation was the target of the al-Shabab attack. Nor said he saw the dead bodies of more than 10 combatants from both sides, and that al-Shabab took most of its dead and wounded fighters as they were repulsed.
Earlier Friday, at least two people were killed and eight others injured in a bomb blast that killed a regional minister in the town of Baidoa, about 250 kilometers from the capital, Mogadishu.