AU forces intensify attack on Somali rebels

Correspondence

MOGADISHU - African Union and Somali government troops stepped up their assault on al-Shabaab militants in the capital's northern outskirts on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of families to flee their makeshift homes and head for the city centre.

The AU force, which already controls most of the capital, is trying to advance through the Afgoye corridor, once a rural area northwest of Mogadishu but now home to hundreds of thousands of Somalis uprooted from their homes.

The corridor, believed to house the largest concentration of internally displaced people in the world, stretches some 30 km northwest of Mogadishu to the al Shabaab stronghold of Afgoye.

The AU force began its advance on Tuesday and seized part of Tre Disho village, 13 km from the capital.

Burundian troops with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were advancing from Tre Disho towards Elasha and Afgoye on Wednesday but were meeting resistance from al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants, their spokesman Captain Ndayiragije Come said.

"We want to capture Elasha and if not delayed by resistance we shall capture Afgoye. We captured two anti-aircraft guns hooked on cars and destroyed one yesterday. We also see about 40 bloated dead bodies of al Shabaab lying under the shrubs. They were killed in yesterday's battle," he said.

Al Shabaab has waged a bloody five-year campaign to topple Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its harsh interpretation of sharia, Islamic law, on a country that has been mired in violence for the last two decades.

It still controls swathes of central and southern Somalia but is being gradually squeezed out of its strongholds by Kenyan and Ethiopian troops who have launched their own incursions into Somalia, and is being pushed out of Mogadishu by AU forces.

Civilians fleeing the fighting hoped to find safety in central Mogadishu. "We fled with the children early in the morning," Farhia Aden, a mother of two, told Reuters in Bakara market. "We couldn't stay there because shells were landing and bullets were buzzing around us."

"People are panicked ... we had no time to take all our things," she added.

UPDF kills 41 enemy fighters

On Tuesday, AMISOM troops from Ugandan contingent in support of TFG Forces carried out an offensive operation aimed at capturing the strategic town of Afogooye.

During the attack, 41 al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda fighters were killed action and 11 semi-automatic machineguns (SMGs) captured.

Also captured are 01 B-10, 09 pistols, 01 B-10 Ammo, 01 GPS 01 Motorola Radio, 01 enemy Technical vehicle and mobile phone.  In the same operation, three enemy technical vehicles were destroyed by the AMISON forces. 

UPDF spokesperson, Col. Felix Kulayigye says the Al-Shabaab fighters were seen running in disarray towards Alogooye and Lafole.

Meanwhile, on Mogadishu Balaad road, the AMISON forces captured and dominated Elfitre town 14 kms to Balaad Bridge.