Eight others taken to hospital after ambush by Al Shabaab militants on Amisom troops in Somalia

Three Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers were killed and eight wounded in an ambush by Al Shabaab militants in Delbio, Somalia, military officials said.

The soldiers were on foot patrol when they were attacked by the gunmen on Saturday at about 10 a.m. in Tabda.

The other soldiers engaged the militants, who later retreated into a forest. No arrests have been made.

"The three soldiers died while undergoing treatment while the rest are in stable condition," said a military official who asked not to be named.

According to officials, the injured were driven to Dadaab refugee camp, near Kenya-Somalia border and later flown to Nairobi.

The military helicopter could not land at the Somalia border because it was raining heavily, the officials said.

Efforts to trace the attackers are ongoing, the official said.

In another incident, Al-Shabaab militants attacked an African Union peacekeepers' convoy in southern Somalia, wounding at least three people and burning two vehicles, a Somali army officer said.

Al-Shabaab said it had launched the attack near the town of Leego, in the southern Lower Shabelle region, and that it had destroyed two vehicles and killed five members of the force.

The African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) could not be reached for immediate comment.

Dozens of well-armed fighters attacked the AU convoy, prompting an exchange of heavy fire, residents said.

Colonel Aden Mohamed, a senior Somali military officer, told Reuters from Leego that he had seen at least three Amisom soldiers wounded and two burned vehicles. He said the casualty figure could be higher.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al-Shabaab's military operations spokesman, told Reuters of the five dead and the two destroyed vehicles.

The group often cites higher death tolls or casualty figures than numbers given by officials.

Last week Al-Qaeda-aligned Al-Shabaab militants stormed a government building housing two ministries in the heart of Mogadishu, killing at least 10 people.