The Islamist group al Shabaab said on Friday its fighters killed dozens of Kenyan troops when they attacked a remote military base in Somalia on Thursday, a claim the Kenyan army denied.

A spokesman for al Shabaab, which often launches attacks on the African troops fighting with the African Union’s AMISOM force, said its fighters killed at least 57 Kenyans at the base in the southern town of Kulbiyow, near the Kenyan border.

“That is false,” Kenyan military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Njuguna told Reuters, without giving any casualty figures. “The operation is ongoing. We are receiving updates.”

In January 2016, al Shabaab said it had killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers in El Adde, a Somali camp near the border with Kenya. The Kenyan military never gave details of casualties, but Kenya media reports suggested a toll of that magnitude.

“Two mujahideen (fighters) rammed suicide car bombs into the base in Kulbiyow town before storming it,” he said, adding that alongside counting 57 Kenyan bodies the group seized vehicles and weapons. “We have taken over the base.”

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Featured image courtesy of ABC News.