MOGADISHU, Somalia – With a show of force, Somali government troops on Sunday took full control of the strategic western town where the national security minister was killed last month.
MOGADISHU, Somalia – With a show of force, Somali government troops on Sunday took full control of the strategic western town where the national security minister was killed last month.
Hundreds of heavily armed government soldiers rolled into the town of Belet Weyne in 18 pickups with machine-guns just before dawn, resident Abshir Haji Damal told The Associated Press.
“The rebel forces surprisingly abandoned the area,” he said.
Only one soldier was injured in a brief fight with Islamist militants before Belet Weyne was retaken, said Muqtar Hussein Afrah, the chief commander of Somali forces in the central Hiran region.
Belet Weyne, the capital of Hiran, is close to the border with Ethiopia, some 185 miles north of Mogadishu. Since January, government forces have controlled the town’s eastern part and Islamic insurgents the western part.
“We are now in control and troops are guarding the streets and the strategic locations of the entire town,” Afrah told The Associated Press by phone.
On June 18, Somalia’s national security minister and at least 24 other people were killed in a suicide attack in Belet Weyne that an extremist Islamic group, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for. The U.S. State Department considers al-Shabab a terrorist organization that has links with al-Qaida, something the group denies.
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In photo: Somali government forces engage in heavy fighting with hard-line Islamic rebels in northern Mogadishu’s yaqshiid neighborhood earlier this month.
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