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| Last Updated: Jun 14, 2010 - 8:03:37 PM |
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Somalia: Al-Shabaab withdraws from Bakara Market
7 Feb 7, 2010 - 12:54:42 PM
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Confidential sources told Garowe Online that Somalia’s Al-Shabaab has started withdrawing all its weapons, battle vehicles and fighters from Mogadishu’s main Bakara Market, which has been their stronghold since the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.
The sources said the group is taking the drastic action ahead of the planned government offensive against its positions in the capital.
Small cars transport weapons and other equipments from Bakara Market. The battle wagons have also left the market, we don’t know where they are taken,” said a trader who requested not be named for security reasons.
Other sources said the group has also withdrawn all its fighters and weapons from Daynile district, another stronghold which is located outskirts of Mogadishu.
The government announced the planned offensives against the powerful rebels in a bid to take over the security of the capital.
However, Al-Shabaab’s spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohammud Raghe (Ali Dhere) termed the government plans as just another over publicized one that would always gone to disappoint.
“The reports from the TFG that it wants to attack us are just another unworthy warning, which has been going around since Omar Hashi era, it wouldn’t happen,” he told reporters in Mogadishu last week.
Al-Shabaab, which alleges to have links with Al-Qaeda terror network, controls large chunk of the country’s southern regions while the transition government is confined in few blocks of Mogadishu.
GAROWE ONLINE
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