Somali Army Kicks Out Al-Shabaab militants from key areas: residents

Turkey trains Somali soldiers at Turk-Som base in Mogadishu since 2017 [File Photo]

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Somali National Army [SNA] has managed to retake four Al-Shabaab villages in Southern Somalia, following an intensive crackdown that comes at the time the country is preparing for Lower House elections.

Southern Somalia especially in parts of Lower/middle Jubba and Lower Shabelle is dominated by the militants who have been seeking to topple the fragile UN-backed Somalia administration, which is considered one of the weakest in the world.

Top army officials said most of the liberated villages are in the Bakool region where the SNA has been pursuing the militants. It's just early this week the military foiled an Al-Shabaab attack according to officials.

“Our troops liberated Gomor, Aboore, Banjina, and Doonful, near the town of Hudur, from terrorists,” Abdi Ahmed Adan, a military official in Bakool, told Anadolu Agency over the phone.

The top army officer said the terrorists were driven out with little resistance and there were no casualties in the operations. The villages are strategic in the sense that they are major humanitarian assistance routes in the country.

Shiine Moalim Nuurow, the governor of Bakol, was in the area and assured residents that operations against al-Shabaab will continue until all terrorists are driven out from the region, according to Adan.

For the last couple of months, the Somali National Army and the African Union Mission Forces in Somalia have intensified the fight against the Al-Shabaab militants. Quite a number of towns have been liberated across the country.

Al-Shabaab's latest serious attack was in the capital Mogadishu less than a week ago, where a suicide bomber targeted a convoy of the African Union Mission in Somalia [AMISOM], killing three people and injuring a number of people.

Mohamed Hussein Roble, the Prime Minister of the federal republic of Somalia, visited military bases in the central state of Galmudug on Wednesday, where he commended soldiers and urged them to keep up their “important fight against terrorism.”

Al-Shabaab has been seriously degraded according to the State Department but the group can still wage small to large scale sporadic attacks in the country. Thousands of people have died as a result of cowardly attacks waged by the militants.

GAROWE ONLINE