MOGADISHU, Somalia — Government and African Union forces began a heavy offensive early on Friday against insurgent strongholds on the outskirts of the capital, Mogadishu, trying to drive the Islamic militants they have long battled out of the city, officials and witnesses said.

African Union and government forces said they took over strategic positions controlled by the militants, known as the Shabab, seizing Mogadishu University, a milk factory and a cemetery and advancing toward a major strategic road that connects Afgoye and Balad. If taken, it could be a major setback to the Shabab by cutting off their supply line.

Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, a spokesman for the African Union force, said that the allied troops had managed to consolidate their positions in the northern edges of Mogadishu, allowing them to defend the city along its perimeter.

“This is the first time Amisom has been able to secure an area outside the parameters of the city,” he told reporters on Friday, referring to the African Union mission in Somalia.

Col. Abdullahi Ali Anood of the Somali Army’s Second Brigade said that the government forces and African Union troops were now heading toward the strategic Basra Road, nearly 10 miles north of Mogadishu.

The fighting was the heaviest of its kind in recent weeks and started during the early hours of Friday in northern parts of the Yaqshid neighborhood, with a heavy exchange of artillery fire that rocked Mogadishu.

A Shabab spokesman, Abu Muscab, said through a militant-controlled radio station that his group had left its positions in Mogadishu, calling it a military withdrawal. The group has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and installed a reign of terror in the areas that it controls, chopping off hands and blocking the delivery of emergency food to famine victims.

Just last week, the government announced that in a “newly liberated” regional capital north of Mogadishu, skeletons and rotting human flesh from possibly dozens of victims had been discovered in a police station that until recently had been in the hands of the Shabab. Some of the bones and body parts were months, possibly years, old and appeared to have been dismembered before being tossed into a hole, the government said.

Beyond the offensive by government and African Union troops, the Shabab are also facing incursions by Kenyan forces in parts of the south and by Ethiopian troops as well.

But recent Kenyan airstrikes that killed five children have generated anger among government officials and civilians alike. After meeting with a father whose four children were killed in the Kenyan strikes, Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali pledged urgent investigations into the deaths and vowed “to minimize” civilian casualties.

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New York times

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