Pro-government forces in Somalia on Saturday recaptured a border town from al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab Islamists amid a bloody offensive that cost the lives of 43 African Union (AU) troops. A local official said the hard-line militants, whose aim is to overthrow the government and impose a Taliban-style Shariah law, had left the town of Bulo Hawo on the Kenyan border with Ethiopia on Saturday following two weeks of intense fighting.
“We are in full control” of Bulo Hawo, Mohamed Abdi Khalif declared.
An al-Shabaab militant on condition of anonymity said the group had retreated because of a change in tactics.
Photo: Reuters
“We will regain Bulo Hawo and [al-]Shabaab troops who retreated for military reasons are not far away,” he said.
The pro-regime forces include militia led by local warlord Barre Shire Hirale and armed members of Sufi group Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama that are backed by elements of Ethiopia’s army, security sources have told reporters.
The forces had seized Bulo Hawo from the militants in October last year before abandoning it several weeks later amid discord with the interim government. Clashes in the town erupted on Feb. 19, around the same time that pro-government forces and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) launched an offensive in the capital Mogadishu. AMISOM aims to help the fragile transitional government fight insurgents.
A third offensive opened in central Beledweyne.
The simultaneous campaigns appeared aimed at stretching al-Shabaab forces so thinly that they would not be able to concentrate their fighting in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab controls large swathes of the country’s south and center. They have sworn to topple the transitional government, which was formed in 2007 with the backing of the international community.
Pro-government and AMISOM forces on Feb. 23 recaptured strategic positions in northern Mogadishu after violent clashes, destroying a network of trenches and tunnels there that were used by the insurgents to funnel supplies.
AMISOM suffered its largest casualty during that offensive since its deployment in March 2007, military officials said.
At least 43 Burundian soldiers have been killed and 110 have been wounded, military officials said, well above the official toll of eight deaths. That number is “totally false,” a military source in Mogadishu who requested anonymity said.
A senior military officer in the Burundi capital Bujumbura also confirmed the toll, saying that the majority of the soldiers were killed on the first day of the offensive when they seized a former defense ministry and a disused dairy factory from the insurgents. However, “the troops’ morale is good despite these losses which are the worst since we have been deployed in Somalia, because we achieved our goals,” he added.
“The positions that we have seized in the last two weeks break the grip of the extremist militants in Mogadishu,” Wafula Wamunyinyi, an AMISOM official, said.
Burundi sent an extra battalion to Somalia in late November last year, bringing its contingent to about 3,500 soldiers and the overall AMISOM force to more than 8,000. The 4,500 other AMISOM soldiers are from Uganda.
No Burundian army official was available for comment on Saturday. They previously said that only six soldiers of the AU force were killed.
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