Militants retreat from Mogadishu (& the Somali government claims victory)

[Turborama]

Source: LA Times

The Somali government claims victory, but it's unclear whether the withdrawal is a retreat or preparation for a counterattack.

By Jeffrey Fleishman and Lutfi Sheriff Mohamed

Reporting from Cairo and Mogadishu— The Shabab militant Islamic group retreated early Saturday from war-battered Mogadishu as residents awoke to hushed streets and the government claimed victory against extremist forces that had tormented the Somali capital for years.

It was not clear if the withdrawal signaled a lasting retreat or was a tactical shift in preparation for a counterattack. The rebels have been pounded in recent months by 9,000 government-backed African Union soldiers and U.S. drone strikes that have targeted Shabab commanders in Mogadishu and other provinces.

Rebel units began trundling out of the city in pickups before dawn after intense firefights with government forces late Friday night. The Al Qaeda-linked militants headed toward their strongholds across Somalia, a desolate terrain awash with hundreds of thousands of starving families enduring the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades.

The country "welcomes the success by the Somali government forces backed by (African Union peacekeepers) who defeated the enemy of Shabab," President Sheikh Shairf Sheikh Ahmed told reporters at his residence.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-somalia-militants-20110807,0,4693380.story

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Somali government soldiers leave their barracks as they head out to take control of
positions vacated by Islamist insurgents near the Sinay area in northern Mogadishu.
(Mustafa Abdi, AFP/Getty Images / August 6, 2011)

[Turborama]

1. Somali famine refugees draw hope from Islamists' Mogadishu withdrawal

Prime minister says al-Shabaab fighters have now left 90% of the capital, raising prospect of faster delivery of humanitarian aid

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 6 August 2011 20.23 BST

Islamist fighters have pulled out from many bases in the Somali capital in a move that could speed up the delivery of humanitarian services to famine victims, the prime minister has said.

Somali prime minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali estimated the al-Shabaab militants now have vacated 90% of the capital. The African Union had said last week that militants had left 60% of Mogadishu. Ali said the government wanted to send security forces into the new areas vacated by the militants, who are linked to al-Qaida, describing the withdrawal as the "first phase of the new war".

The militants insisted it was merely a tactical withdrawal before a counterattack. "We shall fight the enemy wherever they are," al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamed Rage told a local radio station.

Fighters have blocked many aid organisations from the south and have complicated efforts to help those in Mogadishu. More than 29,000 children under the age of five have died in the last 90 days in the country's south alone, according to US estimates.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/06/somalia-famine-refugees-al-shabaab-mogadishu