... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban...
commander and captured one more town in the latest onslaught on the cut-thoats' strongholds in southern Somalia.
| Hurrah! Even if it doesn't last, clearing out the experienced ones weakens the rest. |
Three Al-Shabaab fighters including one of the commanders in charge of the Gedo region identified as Sheikh Hassan Hussein were killed, Kenya military front man Maj Emmanuel Chirchir reported in social media.
"Out of the engagement three Al-Shabaab killed, two AK-47, three Browning pistols and three HF radios captured. One KDF slightly injured," Maj Chirchir tweeted.
| "Hey, Sarge! Can we use these radios to track down the rest of 'em?" |
In a subsequent interview, Maj Chirchir explained that the capture of Fafadun was vital as it was one of the few remaining Al-Shabaab bases in southern and central Somalia.
"With the capture of Fafadun, the KDF, TFG and Ethiopian troops now control 90 per cent of the Gedo region," he told the Nation.
Besides pockets of the capital Mogadishu, the Al-Shabaab mainly operate in the Gedo region where they have imposed a strict version of the Sharia (Islamic) law.
Maj Chirchir maintained that KDF's ultimate aim was to capture the port town of Kismayu and kick out the cut-thoats.
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The capture of Kismayu will effectively deny the hard boyz of the billions of shillings they collect in illegal taxes to fund their bloody insurgency in the Horn of Africa.
"We will eventually go to Kismayu because its capture is very important to our overall strategy but in terms of when, I cannot tell," he said.
He stated that the injured KDF soldier had been treated.