Monday, August 22, 2011
The Islamic extremist leaders of Al Shabaab, who are allies with Al Qaeda, have warned of suicide attacks, roadside bombs, sniper fire and hit-and-run ambushes and security officials in the city are on alert for such violence.
The withdrawal of the Islamist insurgents mean the city's frontlines have shifted dramatically so that the 9,000 African Union soldiers (AMISOM) and the government forces that fight alongside them now have almost the whole of this broken seaside city to defend, rather than just a few neighborhoods.
In the recently-vacated parts of the capital, AMISOM and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops are warily moving in, occupying parts of the city that have been off-limits for years, trying to get in before the tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somalis, seeking food, shelter and famine relief in the capital, build makeshift camps.