At least two senior commanders from
the Islamist militant group al-Shabab have been killed in a drone strike
in south-west Somalia, residents say.
Several loud blasts were heard in the town of Bardere at dawn and the bodies were found later, they said.
A
Kenyan official has withdrawn his statement that one of those killed
was the mastermind of April's deadly attack on Garissa university.
Bardere is one of the few Somali towns still controlled by al-Shabab.
The
al-Qaeda-linked group has not yet commented, but a source in the group
told a BBC reporter that those killed were al-Shabab commanders.
Al-Shabab carried out the attack on Kenya's Garissa university which killed 148 people.
Kenyan Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka has tweeted that he was mistaken when saying a "mastermind" of that attack was among four al-Shabab commanders killed.
He said he had mixed up the mastermind, known as Gamadheere, with the al-Shabab commander, named Jamaa Adhere.
African Union and Somali government troops are reported to be advancing on the area in Gedo region.
The US has killed several senior members of al-Shabab in drone strikes in the past.
The BBC's Moalimu Mohamed in the capital, Mogadishu, says the
telecommunications network to Bardere has been cut off since the attack,
but residents in the village nearest the town have been contactable.
They
said that after the blasts, well-armed al-Shabab fighters rushed to the
scene in Bardere, near the Juba River about 460km (285 miles) west of
Mogadishu, where the dead men were found.
The names of the
commanders believed to have been killed are Ismael Jamhad and Jama Dere,
a Somali military officer travelling with the African Union troops in
the area has told the BBC.
Somalia has seen clan-based warlords,
rival politicians and Islamist militants battle for control since the
fall of long-serving ruler Siad Barre in 1991.
African Union troops have been in the country since 2007 helping various UN-backed governments fight al-Shabab.
Over
the last four years, the militants have been driven from most of the
key towns they once held but they still control rural areas in the
south.
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