MOGADISHU

Somalia's government troops and African peacekeepers on Sunday recaptured Baraawe district, the last stronghold of the rebel Al-Shabaab militant movement in southern Somalia's Lower Shebelle Region, two days after Al-Shabaab fighters pulled out of the district, eyewitnesses said.  

They said the Somali troops and the African peacekeepers had controlled all facilities and government buildings in the district.

Al-Shabaab had pulled out of the district late on Friday as government troops and African peacekeepers marched toward it, according to Abdikadir Mohamed Sidii, the governor of the Lower Shebelle Region.

Baraawe is the largest stronghold of the Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab movement. It has strategic importance for the economy of the movement, being a coastal city that has its own small port from which coal is exported to Gulf states.

Analysts say the loss of the district will suspend the future expansion of Al-Shabaab across Somalia. They add that Baraawe can also be the first in a series of other withdrawals by the militant movement.

Last month, the Somali government and African peacekeepers launched a massive joint military campaign – dubbed "Operation Indian Ocean" – against Al-Shabaab, which has cost the group most of its strongholds.

Somalia, a long-troubled country in the Horn of Africa, has remained in the grip of on-again, off-again violence since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.

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