AT LEAST two senior commanders from the Islamist militant group al-Shabab have been killed in a drone strike in south-west Somalia, residents say.

Several loud blasts were heard in the town of Bardere at dawn and the bodies were found later, they said.

One of those killed was the mastermind of April’s deadly attack on Garissa University, a Kenyan official has said, but this has not been confirmed.

Bardere is one of the few towns still controlled by al-Shabab.

The al-Qaeda-linked group has not yet commented, but a source in the group told a BBC reporter that those killed were al-Shabab commanders.

Al-Shabab carried out the attack on Kenya’s Garissa University that killed 148 people.

Kenyan Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka has tweeted that a “mastermind” of that attack was among four al-Shabab commanders killed.

African Union and Somali government troops are reported to be advancing on the area in Gedo region.

The U.S. has killed several senior members of al-Shabab in drone strikes in the past.

The BBC’s Moalimu Mohamed in the capital, Mogadishu, says the telecommunications network to Bardere has been cut off since the attack, but residents in the village nearest the town have been contactable.

They said that after the blasts, well-armed al-Shabab fighters rushed to the scene in Bardere, near the Juba River about 460km (285 miles) west of Mogadishu, where the dead men were found.

The names of the commanders believed to have been killed are Ismael Jamhad and Jama Dere, a Somali military officer travelling with the African Union troops in the area has told the BBC.