MOGADISHU – Somalia’s pro-government forces Tuesday closed in on bastions of the insurgent Shebab group, mounting their largest coordinated effort in years to wrest back the country from Al Qaeda-inspired rebels.
The offensive started last week with a major battle in Mogadishu that saw government troops reclaim large swathes of the capital, where the government had long been confined to a few blocks by the sea.
But government troops and their allies have in recent days opened new fronts in the south along the border with Kenya, and in the west, near the border with Ethiopia, two countries reported to actively support the military push.
The Western-backed Somali government’s troops are backed by the 8,000-strong African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as well as by the Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa and tribal militias.
Their offensive aims to stretch a Shebab group which has controlled most of southern and central Somalia for three years with a limited number of men but is supported on the ground by jihadi fighters from around the world. According to witnesses and officials, Ethiopia was trucking in troops to El Bur district, a key Shebab stronghold in central Somalia.
“I saw dozens of trucks belonging to the Ethiopian military heading towards El Bur. It looks like they are joining Ahlu Sunna’s war against the Shebab,” said one local resident, Ise Maalim. A government official in Dolow district, further south, said the all-out offensive that had been promised by three successive prime ministers was finally under way.
“The war to eliminate the Shebab threat from the country has begun, we will not stop until we succeed in our goal to cleanse this country of Al-Qaeda and their Somali followers,” Abdifatah Ibrahim Gesey told AFP. The towns of Bulo Hawo and Luq, near the Kenyan border, were recently recaptured from the Shebab, who witnesses said were abandoning some of their positions in the south to regroup for the battle over Mogadishu.
Bulo Hawo was conquered after a bloody battle which some security sources in the region said left at least 80 people dead, including women, but Luq was taken over without any fighting.
According to officials and witnesses, pro-government forces have also deployed around Beledweyne, a strategic town near the Ethiopian border which is crucial to the flow of military supplies and trade.
Shebab fighters were also believed to brace for a battle in the city of Baidoa, which is where the transitional federal parliament was based before the insurgents captured the town and made it one of their strongholds.
“This is the most coordinated offensive I have seen. … It could change the political map of Somalia for some time,” said a foreign security expert based in the region. The anti-Shebab drive started with an operation conducted mainly by AMISOM’s Ugandan contingent in Mogadishu to smash a network of trenches and tunnels the insurgents had been using to control most of the city.
A few days later, the African force’s Burundian contingent launched a sweeping raid to recapture key thoroughfares and landmarks that had been in Shebab hands for months and sometimes years.
