Militants Losing Ground, Fighting Back in Somalia

Forces loyal to the militant group al-Shabaab have attacked a Somali army checkpoint, killing at least nine people.

Somali and al-Shabaab officials said the fighting took place late Friday and early Saturday near Bosasso, in the Puntland region.

A military spokesman for al-Shabaab, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told media organizations the militant group attack killed at least 30 government soldiers. But local officials told Reuters only nine people had been killed, and that five were militants.

The latest outbreak of violence comes as Somali, Ethiopian and other African Union-backed forces have claimed they are making progress in their offensive against al-Shabaab.

Somali government commander Abdikarin Yusuf Adeh Saturday called the recent capture of the town of Maslah, just outside the capital, a key victory.

“This is the last base that we are capturing from al-Shabaab and today Mogadishu is the hand of Somali government forces and we shall continue fighting until we shall eradicate the extremist in our country as whole.”

Adeh also urged young Somalis who might have thought about joining with al-Shabaab to reconsider.

““I call for all young people from Al-Shabaab to lay down their weapons and I promise not hurt them and we shall give them back their freedom of life.”

On Friday, Ethiopian forces operating in Somalia said they seized a strategic town previously held by al-Shabaab.

The commander of Ethiopian forces in Somalia said his troops drove the Islamist militants from the strategic town of Baidoa with little or no resistance.

Al-Shabaab, which recently formalized an alliance with al-Qaida, is the target of a regional offensive backed by the AU, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

The group once controlled nearly all of the capital and most of southern and central Somalia. But it has steadily lost ground for the past 18 months.

VOA