MOGADISHU: African Union troops yesterday seized a rebel stronghold near Mogadishu from Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, marking a major blow against Al-Shabab rebels who have used the town to stage sporadic attacks on the capital.

The capture of Afgoye by the AU force AMISOM and Somali government troops, who already control most of Mogadishu, also paves the way to securing a corridor to the capital giving access to agencies providing humanitarian aid to displaced people.

Nevertheless, it still leaves the capital vulnerable to attacks because African Union and government troops have as yet been unable to dislodge the last of the rebels from areas just around Mogadishu.

“We have crossed the River Shabelle and we are now there in Afgoye, we hold the town,” AU army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said. “We have been fighting since Tuesday to achieve this objective and we have achieved it now.”

“There was some brief resistance but we have crushed that,” said Somali army commander Mohamed Abdullah.

Al-Shabab confirmed the capture of the town by the AU forces on its website www.somalimemo.net, and said its withdrawal was tactical.

“Thousands of our enemies, AMISOM, with tanks, entered Afgoye town on Friday after three days of fighting,” the website said. “They took the town without resistance. The mujahideen withdrew as part of our tactics.”

Afgoye is a strategic junction town on the road leading from Mogadishu to the south of the Horn of Africa nation, about 30 km outside the capital.

“It is a significant blow for Al-Shabab, that said Al-Shabab is not a diminished force and having been in Mogadishu I can tell you they continue to infiltrate the city, continue to conduct assassinations and other asymmetric war tactics,” Rasheed Abdi, an independent Horn of Africa analyst, said.

“They (AMISOM and Somali government troops) should not rest on their laurels, the struggle continues ... Mogadishu still remains vulnerable to these attacks.”

The capture of Afgoye is “a significant military breakthrough,” said Augustine Mahiga, the UN special representative for Somalia. “Afgoye... controls the exits and entrances to Mogadishu and it has been a military headquarters of Al-Shabab,” he said.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday about 6,200 people had been displaced following the fighting in Afgoye.

“However strategic Afgoye may be, even if Afgoye is taken I don’t think that will be the end of the military challenge,” Augustine Mahiga, special representative of the UN secretary general on Somalia, said earlier on Friday.

Reuters