KDF troops capture two Al Shabaab strongholds

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Wednesday, February 01, 2012

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Kenyan troops captured more key towns in the battle to eliminate Al Shabaab militants in Somalia.

Kenya Defence Forces and Transitional Federal Government soldiers took over Badhade and Hosingo south of Tabda as they headed to Afmadhow.

"KDF/TFG capture Badhade! Hosingo town south of Tabda falls to KDF/TFG troops today... Al Shabaab mounting resistance," military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir said on his Twitter Wednesday.

He said an air strike on Sunday in Hayo area had destroyed Al Shabaab’s five technical equipment and a tractor.

Kenya and Somali government troops are carrying out a joint military offensive against the Al Qaeda linked fighters.

The offensive was launched in October last year following a spate of kidnappings of foreigners in Kenya by the militants.

Kenya and Somali governments have accused the Al Shabaab of being behind growing insecurity along the common border of the two countries.

The next battlefield will be Afmadhow and Kismayu which the troops expect to capture in the coming week.

The development came, as it emerged that the militants are angered by last week’s killing of al-Qaeda official of Lebanese origin fighting alongside insurgents in Somalia.

A US drone hit Bilal al-Berjawi’s car on the outskirts of Mogadishu killing him on the spot.

Three missiles were fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle, according to a statement from the insurgent’s al-Kataib.

Al-Shabaab said Berjawi was a Lebanese and British citizen who grew up in West London and fought in Afghanistan before going to Somalia in 2006.

He helped to oversee recruitment and training of Al-Shabaab, who are fighting the weak UN-backed government.

Foreign fighters

He was a close associate of late al-Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who masterminded the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Berjawi is at least the fourth senior al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab commander to be killed.

Last year, a Somali soldier shot dead Fazul at a checkpoint and in 2009, US soldiers killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter raid. In 2008, a US air strike killed Al Qaeda commander Aden Hashi Ayro and two dozen civilians.

Police say there are several foreign fighters in Somalia, clustered in training camps around the insurgents’ stronghold of Kismayu.

Most of the foreigners are Africans from nearby nations, but more than 40 Americans have also travelled to Somalia to join Al Shabaab, according to a report from the House Homeland Security Committee. Around 15 of them have been killed.

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