MOGADISHU, SOMALIA: Kenya’s army said yesterday it had taken the southern Somali port city of Kismayo, the last stronghold of the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabab, but the African Union force said operations were still ongoing.

“Kismayo has fallen and with minimum resistance,” Kenyan army spokesman Cyrus Oguna told AFP, even as several residents said that fighting was ongoing and the Shabab still controlled the city center.

“It was a joint operation both on air and ground, we finally entered Kismayo at 2 a.m. (2300 GMT Thursday),” said Oguna.

“We cannot give casualty figures at the moment; the damage has not been assessed,” Oguna told AFP, insisting that Kenyan forces were inside the town.

“Operations are ongoing to neutralize specific Shabab targets in Kismayo,” the AU force in Somalia (AMISOM), of which the Kenyan troops are part, said in a statement.

AMISOM appealed to Shabab fighters to give themselves up to the force.

However, the rebels and city residents said the Kenyan troops were still on the outskirts of the city that they have been targeting for days.

A Shabab commander in Kismayo also denied that soldiers had entered the city.

“The enemy using military boats have deployed hundreds of soldiers on the coast late last night and the rebels are engaging in heavy fighting with them now,” said Sheik Mohamed Abu Fatuma.

“They are not very close to the city because the coast where they are now is around nine kilometers (six miles) from downtown,” he said.

Several Kismayo residents also said the Kenyan forces were still on the beach, where they came ashore from two ships escorted by helicopter gunships around five kilometers from the city center.

“The city itself is still under control of the Shabab. Radio Andalus is operating and calling on people to join the jihad and overthrow the invaders,” one resident, Abdulahi Yakub, told AFP.

The UN refugee agency said there was no sign yesterday of a major exodus of civilians from the city, from which an estimated 12,000 people have fled in the past four weeks and whose total population is estimated at between 160,000 and 190,000.

Kismayo is the last major bastion of the Shabab, who have lost most of their other strongholds to the 17,000-strong African Union force — of which Kenya is a part — as well as allied Ethiopian forces.

Kenyan troops have been aiming to take Kismayo ever since they rolled troops and tanks across the border to fight the militants almost a year ago. Reaching their goal has taken them longer than anticipated.

Kenyan forces have been targeting the port for days and on Tuesday fighter jets bombarded the city’s airport.

Separately, a Somali journalist was shot dead by gunmen yesterday while a second journalist was beheaded and his body dumped in the street, officials and residents said, two attacks that bring the number of Somali journalists killed this year to 15.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest killings, but the deaths fit into a year-long pattern of targeted attacks against Somali journalists. Reporters must watch for attacks from militants and criminals and know that such deaths have been met with judicial inaction in a capital city with crippled government institutions.

Residents in an area just north of Mogadishu discovered the body of Abdirahman Muhammad Ali, a 26-year-old sports writer with his hands tied behind his back on Thursday. His body also showed signs of torture. No previous killing of a journalist has involved a beheading, and the method of death could be an indication that Al -Shabab were responsible.