The Somali army and international peacekeepers have “fully secured” a strategic town from Islamist militants after over a week of fighting, the defense ministry said Friday.
Since the beginning of last year, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab group has seized dozens of towns and villages in an offensive that has reversed nearly all of the gains made by the troubled Horn of Africa nation’s army in 2022 and 2023.
On August 1, the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) launched an offensive to retake the town of Bariire, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the capital Mogadishu, in the Bas-Shabelle region.
Home to a major military operational base, Bariire fell to Al-Shabaab in March without a fight after Somalia’s soldiers retreated, with the jihadists destroying a bridge vital to the military’s supply lines.
On Friday, the Somali defense ministry said the town had been recaptured by federal forces and Ugandan troops, under AUSSOM.
“This afternoon fully secured the strategic town of Bariire… following a week-long offensive,” it said in a statement, putting Al-Shabaab’s losses at “over 100 militants.”
There was no indication of casualty numbers among AUSSOM troops.
“The forces are now conducting clearance operations in the town surrounding the areas, seizing a significant cache of weapons and military supplies,” the ministry added.
Although AUSSOM has more than 10,000 troops in Somalia, Al-Shabaab has in recent months racked up a spate of successes against the peacekeeping mission and its allies in the Somali army.
At the end of June its fighters killed at least seven Ugandan soldiers deployed to another town in Bas-Shabelle.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack in March that narrowly missed the convoy of Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and fired shells at Mogadishu’s airport in April.
