At least 180
Kenyan troops were killed when al-Shabab attacked their base last month,
Somalia's president has said.
Kenya's army
said the number was untrue, but again refused to give its own casualty figures
for the assault in the southern Somali base of el-Ade.
The Islamist
militant group said it had killed about 100 Kenyan troops.
If it is
confirmed that 180 troops were killed, it would be al-Shabab's deadliest
assault since it was formed nearly a decade ago.
Its previous
most deadly attack was the killing of 148 people in the day-long assault on
Garissa University College in north-eastern Kenya last April.
Somalia's
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud gave the death toll of 180 in an interview with
a Somali television station, while defending his attendance at a memorial for
the soldiers in Kenya.
Some Somalis
accused him on social media of showing greater concern for the killing of
Kenyans than his own nationals.
President
Mohamud said it was important to pay tribute to the troops killed in el-Ade,
which is in Somalia's south-western region of Gedo.
"When 180
or close to 200 soldiers who were sent to us are killed in one day in Somalia,
it's not easy," he told Somali Cable TV.
"The
soldiers have been sent to Somalia to help us get peace in our country, and
their families are convinced that they died while on duty," he added.
Kenyan army spokesman
David Obonyo said the Somali president's information was untrue.
‘’We should stop
trivializing the dead. They are not mere statistics. They ought to be treated
with honour and respect," Col Obonyo added.
The el-Ade
attack was hugely embarrassing for Kenya, and it is not surprising that it has
rejected the Somali president's figure without giving its own. Kenya's
government possibly fears that confirming a high death toll would fuel doubts
among Kenyans about its military presence in Somalia.
It is unclear
where Mr Mohamud got the figure from, and whether he had had intentionally
disclosed it, something that could strain diplomatic relations with Kenya.
Kenya's military
is clearly upset with him, but it has previously said that a company-sized
battalion, usually made up of 100 to 250 men, was targeted by the militants.
And there is no
doubt that this was the bloodiest attack on Kenyan troops since they crossed
into Somalia in 2011, even if the exact death toll remains unclear.
The Kenyan army
has sought revenge for the attack, carrying out a series of air strikes against
suspected al-Shabab bases in southern Somalia, even saying that it has killed
the group's intelligence chief, a claim the militants deny.
Mr Mohamud's
figure is similar to that a community leader in el-Ade gave to the BBC Somali
service after the attack on 15 January. He had counted about 190 bodies, he
said.
It is unclear
why al-Shabab put the number of killed at about 100, but one possibility is
that it excluded ethnic Somalis who were Kenyan soldiers, correspondents say.
After the
attack, Kenya said the bombs used by al-Shabab were three times more powerful
than those used by al-Qaeda in the 1998 US embassy attack in the capital,
Nairobi, which left 224 people dead. Its troops withdrew from el-Ade 11 days
after the attack.
Kenya has about
4,000 troops in the 22,000-strong African Union force battling al-Shabab, which
is part of al-Qaeda, in Somalia.