AFP-MOGADISHU  — Somalia’s pro-government forces closed in Tuesday on bastions of the insurgent Shebab group, in the largest coordinated effort in years to wrest back the country from Al Qaeda-inspired rebels.

The offensive against the Islamist militants started last week with a major battle in Mogadishu that saw government troops reclaim large swathes of the capital, where the government had long been confined to a few blocks by the sea.

But government troops and their allies have in recent days opened new fronts in the south along the border with Kenya, and in the west, near the border with Ethiopia, two countries reported to actively support the military push.

The Western-backed Somali government’s troops are backed by the 8,000-strong African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as well as by the Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa and tribal militias.
Their offensive aims to stretch a Shebab group which has controlled most of southern and central Somalia for three years with a limited number of men but is supported on the ground by jihadi fighters from around the world.

According to witnesses and officials, Ethiopia was trucking in troops to El Bur district, a key Shebab stronghold in central Somalia..

“I saw dozens of trucks belonging to the Ethiopian military heading towards El Bur. It looks like they are joining Ahlu Sunna’s war against the Shebab,” said one local resident, Ise Maalim.

According to officials and witnesses, pro-government forces have also deployed around the border town of Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border.

“The war to eliminate the Shebab threat from the country has begun, we will not stop until we succeed in our goal to cleanse this country of Al Qaeda and their Somali followers,” Abdifatah Ibrahim Gesey, a government official in the border town of Dolow, told AFP.
The towns of Bulo Hawo and Luq, near the kenyan border, were recently recaptured from the Shebab, who witnesses said were abandoning some of their positions in the south to regroup for the battle over Mogadishu.

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