{"id":299,"date":"2012-10-01T17:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T17:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?guid=a07475eae98accf59686b6803f87adb0"},"modified":"2015-02-28T14:12:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T19:12:16","slug":"somalia-deploys-government-soldiers-in-captured-former-al-qaeda-stronghold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/299","title":{"rendered":"Somalia Deploys Government Soldiers in Captured Former al-Qaeda Stronghold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2012-10-01\/somalia-deploys-forces-in-captured-former-al-qaeda-stronghold\" class=\"postlink\">Bloomberg<\/a>) - Somalia deployed government soldiers in the center of the port city of Kismayo, three days after African Union forces captured the stronghold of al-Qaeda-backed Islamist militants, an eyewitness said.<br \/><br \/>\u201cArmed government forces together with armored vehicles have been seen in the city,\u201d Ibrahim Abdi Sheikh, a businessman in Kismayo, said in a phone interview today. General Ismail Sahardiid, the general commander of Somali forces in the southern Juba region, didn\u2019t answer his mobile phone when called for comment today.<br \/><br \/>African forces seized Kismayo on Sept. 28 in what Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said marked a turning point in the war against Islamist militants who have been seeking the ouster of Somalia\u2019s United Nations-backed government since at least 2006. Kenyan forces entered Somalia last year following attacks on tourists and aid workers in Kenya and are now fighting under an African Union mandate.<br \/><br \/>Kismayo was a strategic target because it\u2019s been a key supply route for al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and a source of taxes the group collects, according to the UN. Income from Somali ports has generated as much as $50 million a year for al-Shabaab from illegal trading, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia said in a report last year.<br \/><br \/>African Union forces haven\u2019t been deployed in Kismayo yet, Colonel Ali Hamud Aden, a spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia, said by phone today from Mogadishu.<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2012-10-01\/somalia-deploys-forces-in-captured-former-al-qaeda-stronghold\">Bloomberg<\/a>) &#8211; Somalia deployed government soldiers in the center of the port city of Kismayo, three days after African Union forces captured the stronghold of al-Qaeda-backed Islamist militants, an eyewitness said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Armed government forces together with armored vehicles have been seen in the city,&rdquo; Ibrahim Abdi Sheikh, a businessman in Kismayo, said in a phone interview today. General Ismail Sahardiid, the general commander of Somali forces in the southern Juba region, didn&rsquo;t answer his mobile phone when called for comment today.<\/p>\n<p>African forces seized Kismayo on Sept. 28 in what Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said marked a turning point in the war against Islamist militants who have been seeking the ouster of Somalia&rsquo;s United Nations-backed government since at least 2006. Kenyan forces entered Somalia last year following attacks on tourists and aid workers in Kenya and are now fighting under an African Union mandate.<\/p>\n<p>Kismayo was a strategic target because it&rsquo;s been a key supply route for al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and a source of taxes the group collects, according to the UN. Income from Somali ports has generated as much as $50 million a year for al-Shabaab from illegal trading, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia said in a report last year.<\/p>\n<p>African Union forces haven&rsquo;t been deployed in Kismayo yet, Colonel Ali Hamud Aden, a spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia, said by phone today from Mogadishu.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/299\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}