(CNN) – They came in from the beach, getting out of the wooden dhows they’d seized from fisherman around the Horn of Africa. Hundreds of Al-Shabaab fighters descended on the shores of Puntland, a semi-autonomous state in Somalia. Their shirts hung baggy, combat fatigues stolen from African Union forces clad over thin arms and legs. While an estimated 200-300 were killed in firefights in Puntland and its neighboring region of Galmudug, Puntland’s President Abdiweli Gaas tells CNN that up to 100 of them surrendered and dropped their weapons when they realized they were overpowered.
