Daily Monitor
Monday, January 23, 2012
Forces of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and peacekeepers
from the African Union Mission in Somalia, waged an all out attack have
kicked out al-Shabaab militants from the suburbs of the Somali capital
Mogadishu.
Through al-Andalus, a series of broadcasters that run the
fanatical movement, the Islamist militants admitted to have lost their
last positions at the outskirts of Mogadishu.
In the northern sections of the capital, residents in Heliwa
District confirmed that the TFG forces and Amisom peacekeepers advanced
beyond the strategic Suuqa Hoolaha and Waharaadde neighbourhoods on
Friday.
Other sources confirmed that the pro-government forces
cleared al-Shabaab fighters of Daynile District, including the strategic
Gupta neighbourhood and the main campus of Mogadishu University.
Col. Abdullahi Ali Anod, a TFG army officer, told
the media that the pro-government forces are in control of Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab officials, however, were reluctant to accept defeat. “The war
will not end that way,” stated some militant officials via the media.
They sounded like promising a comeback.The fighters had abandoned most
of their positions in August last year but they continued waging
hit-and-run assaults, particularly in the neighbourhoods.
Foreign Jihadist killed
Meanwhile, Bilal
al-Burjawi, a British citizen of Lebanese origin, was killed by drones
at Siinka Dheer Area at the outskirts of Mogadishu at the weekend.
“It
was 2pm in the afternoon (on Saturday) when an unknown drone plane
struck, firing three missiles around Fiqi Hospital (Siinka Dheer area
about 13 kilometres at the southern outskirts of Mogadishu),” Sheikh Ali
Mohamoud Raghe, the top spokesman of al-Shabaab, said, adding “We
assumed the aircraft to belong to the ‘Christian Americans.”
He said al-Burjawi was one of the foreign fighters
known in Somalia as Migrant Jihadists. The dead jihadist is said to have
been in Somalia since the days of the Union of the Islamic Courts and
had been in the forefront of the struggle for power by the Islamists.
Many times, Al-Shabaab officials reiterated that
they changed the war tactics, asserting that they will continue
inflicting harm on pro-government forces through hit-and-run attacks,
landmine and suicide explosions as well as character targeting for
assassinations.
Nevertheless, the al-Qaeda inspired fanatical Islamists have been
experiencing military pressure from upcountry regions as increasing
numbers of Ethiopian and Kenyan troops kept on helping pro-government
forces in the southern and central regions of Somalia.