MOGADISHU: The Somali army and international peacekeepers have “fully secured” a strategic town from Islamist militants after over a week of fighting, the Defense Ministry said.
Since the beginning of last year, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabab group has seized dozens of towns and villages in an offensive that has reversed nearly all of the gains made by the troubled Horn of Africa nation’s army in 2022 and 2023.
On Aug. 1, the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, launched an offensive to retake the town of Bariire, around 100 km west of the capital Mogadishu, in the Bas-Shabelle region.
Home to a major military operational base, Bariire fell to Al-Shabab in March without a fight after Somalia’s soldiers retreated, with the jihadists destroying a bridge vital to the military’s supply lines.
On Friday, the Somali Defense Ministry announced that the town had been recaptured by federal forces and Ugandan troops, under the auspices of AUSSOM.
