Several people have been reported killed in an airstrike apparently targeting a residential home in southern Somalia occupied by al-Shabab militants.

The Saturday night attack, reported by local officials and witnesses on Sunday, was also confirmed by an al-Shabab source, who said a missile struck the town of Dinsoor, AFP reported.

The source cited in the report, however, refused to discuss details about the intended targets of the airstrike and the number of casualties it has caused.

Meanwhile, a Somali government official in the lower Shabele region identified as Abdukadir Mohamed Nur announced that several of the al-Qaeda-linked militants were killed in the attack.

“Many al-Shabab militants were killed in the airstrike,” he said, without offering explanations about the intended target and the country that launched the lethal attack.

A Dinsoor resident cited in the report stated in a telephone call that four civilians may have been among those wounded or killed in the airstrike.

In September 2014, al-Shabab’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane was killed in a US airstrike in the country.

Additionally, Washington conducted another airstrike in December 2014, killing an individual Somali authorities described as a top Shabab intelligence official.

Somalia has been the scene of deadly clashes between government forces and al-Shabab militants since 2006.

The militants have been pushed out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and other major cities in the country by government forces and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is largely made up of troops from Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone, and Kenya.