Dubai, UAE–Three Emirati soldiers and a Bahraini officer were killed in an attack in Somalia, where they were training the Somali national army, the United Arab Emirates’ defense ministry said Saturday.
The soldiers were “exposed to a terrorist act” while “performing their work duties in training and qualifying the Somali Armed Forces”, the ministry said in a statement on social media platform X.
Two others were wounded in the incident, the ministry said, without giving further details.
The UAE “continues to coordinate and cooperate with the Somali government in investigating the sinful terrorist act”, the statement added.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud “sent his condolences to the people and Government of the United Arab Emirates”, according to the Somali news agency SONNA, which said the attack had targeted a military camp in the capital Mogadishu.
“I condemn to the worst terms the incident that took the lives of the UAE officers who sacrificed their time and lives to liberate and re-build our country,” said Mohamud, adding that he was ordering an investigation into the attack.
The United Arab Emirates and Somalia, embroiled in an internal conflict with the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab, signed a military and security cooperation agreement in January 2023.