MOGADISHU Oct 19 (Reuters) – Kenyan and Somali forces were poised to close in on Islamist rebels in their southern strongholds as Paris announced a Frenchwoman, whose kidnapping spurred Kenya’s cross-border incursion, had died.
Kenya’s military stormed across the border on Sunday to support Somali government troops in a risky attempt to secure the frontier and its hinterland. The operation follows a wave of kidnappings by suspected militants that have threatened the East African country’s key tourism industry.
A Kenyan military spokesman said Kenyan and Somali government troops had killed 73 rebels during fighting.
“We killed the 73 rebels during our artillery bombardment operations and so far the military has secured three towns… no casualties were reported on the Kenyan side,” Emmanuel Chirchir told Reuters in Nairobi.
“The operation will continue as the troops are ready and prepared for anything,” he said, although he admitted heavy rains were hampering troops from advancing further towards the al Qaeda-linked rebels.
A senior Somali commander said the operation’s aim was to rid Kismayu, a port city that serves as al Shabaab’s nerve centre for operations, of the militants.
“We are determined to cleanse al Shabaab from Kismayu and then from all of Somalia,” General Yusuf Hussein Dumaal, head of government troops in southern Somalia, told Reuters by phone from Taabto village on Wednesday.
“We hope it will not take us a week to capture Lower Juba region particularly Kismayu,” he said.
Kismayu is about 120 kilometres (75 miles) to the southeast of Afmadow, where the rebels have been fortifying their defences, digging tunnels and pouring in battle wagons mounted with heavy machineguns to try and stop the advancing troops.
Residents said al Shabaab had detained 22 civilians, including six women, whom the group accused of collaborating with Kenyan and Somali forces.
“There is so much fear. We are even afraid of calling relatives. Al Shabaab listens to what ever call you make because they have access to the phone company operators,” local elder Ali Adow told Reuters from Afmadow.
If Somali and Kenyan troops were to seize Kismayu, it would be a major blow to the al Qaeda-linked rebels for whom the city is an important operations base, and the port a major source of revenue from illegally trafficked goods.
FRENCH HOSTAGE DIES
Al Shabaab said Kenyan troops were in the towns of Taabto, Qoqani and near the border town of Elwaq. Residents said they saw Kenyan tanks alongside Somali troops in the Gedo region, near Busaar, about 40 km (25 miles) deeper inside Somalia.
“We shall retake our towns,” al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told reporters in Lafole near Mogadishu.
“We shall launch a fierce attack on them. We shall destroy their tanks and troops,” he said.
The operation launched by Kenya is a major escalation that risks dragging the region’s biggest economy deeper into Somalia’s two-decade-old civil war, but a spate of kidnappings of Westerners by gunmen thought to be linked to al Shabaab left it little choice but to strike back.
The Frenchwoman, 66-year-old Marie Dedieu was seized from the island of Manda on Kenya’s northern coast on Oct. 1. Gunmen whisked her on a speedboat to Somalia.
“The contacts with whom we were working to secure the release of Marie Dedieu have told us of her death,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in a statement.
“France is shocked at the total absence of humanity and the cruelty that the kidnappers have shown with regard to our compatriot, and we want them to be identified and face justice,” Valero said, adding that Paris could not confirm the date or cause of death.
Another British woman and two Spanish female aid workers were kidnapped in the past few weeks, abductions which al Shabaab deny responsibility for and which they say Kenya is using as a pretext to launch their attack.
Security sources have said the British and French woman had been held in al Shabaab-controlled territory, highlighting the cooperation between the militants and criminal networks such as pirates who hijack vessels for ransom.
MORE BOMBS IN MOGADISHU
Al Shabaab has waged an insurgency since 2007 against the Western-backed government. Facing sustained pressure from government and African peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu, the rebels pulled out their fighters from the capital in August.
But the insurgents retained control of large swathes of south and central Somalia and vowed to launch more attacks against government offices.
On Wednesday, a remotely detonated bomb exploded near the seaport in Mogadishu, wounding six people, a day after a suicide bomber killed six people in the city.
There have been no claims of responsibility for those relatively small-scale attacks. Al Shabaab launched its deadliest attack ever in Somalia when a suicide truck bomb killed more than 70 people earlier this month.
Kenya’s Planning Minister warned that the instability in Somalia would reflect badly on the east African country’s tourism industry, the third largest source of foreign exchange last year, earning Kenya 74 billion shillings ($740 million) last year.
Kenya has long looked nervously at its anarchic neighbour and its troops have made brief incursions in Somali territory in the past. This week’s incursion on a larger scale could invite major reprisals, which al Shabaab have threatened.
“Al Shabaab, the instability in Somalia is … likely to affect our tourism industry,” Wycliffe Oparanya said.
“We are not yet safe, they can retaliate in many ways. But Kenya has decided to deal with the issue for once.” ($1 = 99.900 Kenyan Shillings)
___
Reuters
