{"id":10639,"date":"2015-07-23T13:28:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T13:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=10639"},"modified":"2015-07-23T13:28:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T13:28:29","slug":"somali-au-troops-capture-key-shabab-stronghold-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=10639","title":{"rendered":"Somali, AU troops capture key Shabab stronghold: officials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Somali government troops backed by<a class=\"entityAnchor\"> African Union<\/a>forces Wednesday captured the Shabab stronghold of Bardhere, one of the last key bases of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have secured control of the town. The allied forces are now conducting mine clearing operations in the different neighborhoods,&#8221; Siyad Ahmed, a Somali military official, told<a class=\"entityAnchor\"> AFP<\/a>by telephone from the southern town.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was no a major resistance, and the violent elements fled when our troops approached. They have emptied the town,&#8221; Ahmed said.<\/p>\n<p>Witnesses in a nearby villages reported heavy fighting between the Somali government and African Union troops with the Shabab, before the militants pulled out.<\/p>\n<p>They also said residents of Bardhere had also fled.<\/p>\n<p>A Shabab commander, Sheikh Ahmed Abu-Ubeyda, confirmed the militants had lost the town but insisted they had not been defeated and that fighting was continuing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The allied invading Christian forces and the Somali apostates entered parts of Bardhere this afternoon&#8230; but the Mujahedeen are putting up resistance,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Mujahedeen fighters are still in the area and this fight will last longer than the enemy thinks,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>dailystar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somali government troops backed by African Unionforces Wednesday captured the Shabab stronghold of Bardhere, one of the last key bases of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists, officials said. &#8220;We have secured control of the town. The allied forces are now conducting mine clearing operations in the different neighborhoods,&#8221; Siyad Ahmed, a Somali military official, told AFPby telephone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}