Somalia’s army chief of staff admitted on Saturday that 10 civilians were killed in a joint raid with US forces the previous day.

Ahmed Jimale Gedi said he was shocked by the massacre in the village of Barire in the Lower Shabelle region.

The US Africa Command (Africom) confirmed that it had supported an operation by the Somali army in the area.

The Somali Information Ministry had earlier claimed that eight al-Shabab terrorists had been killed in the operation on Friday morning and "no civilians were harmed or killed."

A second statement late that night said: "It appears that there were different security operations."

Villagers brought the bodies of the dead to the capital Mogadishu in a protest later on Friday.

Lower Shabelle deputy governor Ali Nur Mohamed told reporters there the residents had been killed "one by one" by “foreign troops.”

He said: "These local farmers were attacked by foreign troops while looking after their crops.

"The troops could have arrested them because they were unarmed but instead shot them one by one mercilessly."

Mr Mohamed said three children, aged eight to 10, and a women were among the dead.

Africom said: "We are aware of the civilian casualty allegations near Barire, Somalia.

“We take any allegations of civilian casualties seriously and, per standard, we are conducting an assessment into the situation to determine the facts on the ground."

Al-Shabab is a terrorist splinter from the Islamic Courts Union movement that overthrew the US-backed Transitional Federal Government of warlords in 2006, prompting a US-backed Ethiopian invasion. It pledges allegiance to al-Qaida.