Photo: Xinhua

Kenyan soldiers (file photo): Members of the Kenya National Defence force also died during the fierce fighting with Al Shabaab.

Mogadishu — Kenyan military Jets bombed a base run by Islamist al Shabaab rebels north of Somalia's Kismayu port on Wednesday, local residents and officials said, but it was not immediately clear whether there were civilian casualties.

Local resident in Birta-Dheer village near Kismayu town confirmed to Shabelle Media by phone the bombardment and said the jets hit the militants' base near the village early hours on Wednesday. No militant casualty was also reported in the attack.

Also in the news Kenyan military forces carrying tanks and artillery have been massing around Biibi village, a town just 85-Km away from north of Kismayu, the nerve centre of Al Shabaab operations in the Horn of Africa country.

Kenyasent troops into anarchic Somalia in last October after cross-border raids and kidnappings that it blamed on Al Shabaab, which has allied itself with Al Qaeda, but regional security has not improved.

AMISOM eyes the rebel-held port town of Kismayu, some 500 kilometers south of Mogadishu and one of the main towns remained in Al shabab control.