AU, Somali troops capture Islamist stronghold

AU, Somali troops capture Islamist stronghold
We will hunt the invaders from inside and outside Jowhar, Al Shabab says.

Nairobi: African Union troops and Somali forces seized the formerly Islamist-held town of Jowhar on Sunday, wresting control of one of the largest remaining towns held by the Al Qaida linked Al Shabab, officials said.
“We took control this morning and are now establishing security in Jowhar,” Colonel Ali Houmed, a spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), told AFP.
“AMISOM troops alongside Somali National Forces entered the town, there was little fighting as the Al Shabab largely fled ahead of us.”
The loss of Jowhar is a significant blow to the Al Shabab, who have lost a string of towns in recent months to the 17,000-strong AMISOM force, as well as to Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia last year from the west

Al Shabab spokesman Abdi Aziz Abu Musab confirmed to AFP that the extremist forces had pulled out of the town, which lies some 90km north on a key road from the capital Mogadishu.
“We have withdrawn our troops from Jowhar for strategic reasons,” Abu Musab said, adding that the forces had pulled out without suffering any casualties and remained “close by” to the town.
“We will hunt the invaders from inside and outside Jowhar,” he added.
Jowhar, the regional capital of Middle Shabelle region, had been under the Islamists’ control since 2009, after Ethiopian troops in a US-backed invasion pulled out in the face of a bloody insurgency.
Its capture brings a step closer the prospect of AU troops pushing northwards being able to link up with Ethiopian soldiers ahead in the Hiraan region.
Al Shabab fighters are on the back foot, with AU troops also battling to open up the road northwest from Mogadishu to link the capital with Baidoa, which is held by Ethiopian soldiers.
The fighters have largely retreated ahead of each assault, with some reportedly relocating to the Galgala region of the northern Golis mountains in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.
The Golis mountains, straddling the porous border between the autonomous state of Puntland and self-declared independent Somaliland, are honeycombed with caves and difficult to access.
The northern mountains have been under longtime control of warlord, arms dealer and Al Shabab ally Mohammad Said Atom, on UN Security Council sanctions for “kidnapping, piracy and terrorism.”
Kenyan troops — who invaded Somalia a year ago before later integrating into AMISOM — have also pushed up from the south, and seized the Al Shabab bastion and major port of Kismayo in September.
But the Al Shabab remain a potent threat, still controlling rural areas as well as carrying out guerrilla attacks – including suicide bombings – in areas apparently under government control.
The Al Shabab, who abandoned fixed positions in the war-torn capital Mogadishu last year, have also carried out a series of guerrilla attacks there.
The hardline insurgents still control the small port town of Barawe, lying some 180km south from the capital.
Somalia has been in political chaos and deprived of an effective central government since the fall of President Siad Barre in 1991.
However, a new administration took office in September, ending eight years of transitional rule by a corruption-riddled government.
Over a million Somalis are displaced inside the country while over a million are refugees in neighbouring nations, according to UN figures.
The United Nations this month appealed for $1.3 billion to support 3.8 million people — about half the population of the war-torn country — it said are in need.
In 2011, famine in the country caused by extreme drought exacerbated by conflict caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people and affected more than four million people, according to the UN.

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