Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said on Saturday his military had defeated Islamist rebels battling to overthrow his Western-backed government after the al Shabaab group began withdrawing fighters from the capital Mogadishu.
Rejecting Ahmed’s claim to have quashed al Shabaab’s four-year insurgency, the militants’ spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, said their retreat was tactical only and that they were holding their positions elsewhere in the anarchic country. A 9,000-strong African peacekeeping force and Somali government forces had been steadily wresting control of rubble-strewn Mogadishu from the militants this year. Al Shabaab’s pullout followed a string of fierce gunbattles late on Friday. Somalia has been without effective central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre 20 years ago.
Winning Mogadishu might expand the government’s capital prison a little, but it is unlikely to bring any tangible peace to the rest of the Horn of Africa country. “The Somali government welcomes the success attained by the Somali government forces backed by AMISOM who defeated the enemy of al Shabaab,” Ahmed told a news conference at his residence. Al Shabaab has never previously entirely left Mogadishu, raising questions over whether deep rifts among the al Qaeda-affiliated group’s senior commanders had finally led to a split.
One faction prefers a more nationalist Somali agenda and wants to impose a harsh Islamic programme on the nation. Another more international wing aims to promote Jihad (holy war) and is bent on overthrowing a government they see as a Western stooge as well as forging closer ties with regional al Qaeda cells. This faction had gained clout with the influx of foreign fighters. Those divisions became sharper as a series of military offensives in Mogadishu exacted a heavy toll on the rebels. Similar sentiments were expressed by Somalis with links to al Shabaab in other parts of the country, including in the southern port city of Kismayu, the nerve centre of al Shabaab’s operations in the south of the country.
“We have abandoned Mogadishu but we remain in other towns,” Rage said on the al Shabaab-run Andalus radio station. “We aren’t leaving you, but we have changed our tactics. Everyone of you will feel the change in every corner and every street in Mogadishu. We will defend you and continue the fighting,” Rage said.
