Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist militant group attacked a military base of Ethiopian soldiers serving with an African Union force on Thursday, with both sides saying they had inflicted a heavy toll on their opponents.
"It was a huge blast. It destroyed the gate and parts of the base," Al Shabaab's military operations spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters.
The group's fighters exchanged fire with Ethiopian soldiers and repelled a counter attack by Djibouti troops deployed from another base in the area.
Al Shabaab regularly attacks AMISOM, which is made up of about 22,000 soldiers and police from African nations supporting Somalia's government and army in the fight against the al Qaeda-linked militants.
The group's insurgency aims to drive out AMISOM, topple Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.
Lieutenant Colonel Joe Kibet, spokesman for the African Union's AMISOM force, dismissed al Shabaab's toll as a "falsehood" but did not give a casualty figure.
"AMISOM forces killed 110 al Shabaab and captured a large cache of weapons," he told Reuters by telephone.
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