Two joint Somali-US airstrikes killed 12 al Shabaab militants in central Somalia and destroyed a ship carrying weapons for the al Qaeda-linked group, the Somali government said on Thursday, following recent advances by the Islamists.

The airstrikes came hours after the Islamists attacked the strategic town of Adan Yabal, which lies about 245 km north of the capital, Mogadishu, and has been used as an operating base for raids on al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab has been waging an insurgency since 2007, seeking to seize power and rule based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic law, and it has been gaining ground since last month.

Several senior al Shabaab fighters were among those killed in an airstrike carried out by Somali forces and the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) in the Adan Yabal district late on Wednesday, Somalia's government said.

"The targeted strike hit a site used by the militants as a gathering and hideout," the Ministry of Information said in a statement on the social media platform X, adding that no civilians had been killed in the strike.

A further airstrike was conducted by the government and AFRICOM on an unidentified and unflagged ship and smaller support vessels that were transporting weapons for al Shabaab within Somali waters, the ministry said.

The vessels were destroyed their occupants were killed, it added.

In a separate incident on Thursday near the southwestern city of Baidoa, the national army killed at least 35 al Shabaab fighters as they tried to attack a military base there, the ministry said.

Al Shabaab briefly captured villages within 50 km of Mogadishu last month, raising fears among residents of the capital that the city could be targeted.

Somali forces have recaptured the villages briefly seized last month, but al Shabaab has continued to advance in the countryside, leading the government to deploy police and prison guards to support the military, soldiers have told Reuters.

The outcome of the heavy fighting that broke out on Wednesday in Adan Yabal was not immediately clear, with government forces and al Shabaab giving conflicting accounts of who was in control of the town.

Al Shabaab said its forces had overrun 10 military installations during the fighting.