71 Somali Insurgents Killed This Week

A total of 71 Islamist insurgents have been killed by Somalia’s interim government soldiers and their Ethiopian allies this week alone, Ethiopia’s state broadcaster has reported. Ethiopia’s state television also claimed that 13 top leaders of the Islamic Courts Union and al Shaabab were among those killed. A key Islamist rebel spokesman however dismissed the report as a propagandist fabrication, saying information about numerous Ethiopians soldiers who had actually been killed by the insurgents had been withheld. [PE]