Al Shabaab insurgents have seized the town of Tardo in Somalia’s central Hiiran region and are pressing on with an advance that has already displaced thousands, a military official said.<\/p>\n
Tardo, a key crossroads linking larger urban centres, fell on Sunday after the al Qaeda-allied fighters of al Shabaab drove out government-allied clan fighters, Major Mohamed Abdullahi told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Al Shabaab has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2007 in a bid to topple the internationally-backed central government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of sharia law.<\/p>\n
“The group is advancing to other areas after the fall of Tardo,” Abdullahi said. Somali forces and local clan fighters, known as Macwiisleey, are mobilising for a counterattack, he added.<\/p>\n
A local elder, a clan fighter and a regional lawmaker confirmed the capture of Tardo – which could help al Shabaab move on to other bigger towns because of its position.<\/p>\n
Al Shabaab’s offensive in the region has escalated since early this year. Previous advances reached within 50 km (30 miles) of the national capital Mogadishu, though Somali forces recaptured those villages.<\/p>\n
“We are discussing with Hiraan people about plans to recapture the towns from al Shabaab,” Abdullahi said. About 100 soldiers had been deployed to reinforce local fighters, he added.<\/p>\n
Regional lawmaker Dahir Amin told Reuters at least 12,500 families have fled Tardo and the nearby town of Muqokori, which al Shabaab said it captured last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Al Shabaab insurgents have seized the town of Tardo in Somalia’s central Hiiran region and are pressing on with an advance that has already displaced thousands, a military official said. Tardo, a key crossroads linking larger urban centres, fell on Sunday after the al Qaeda-allied fighters of al Shabaab drove out government-allied clan fighters, Major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,1129],"tags":[2186,4195,2049,189],"class_list":["post-16935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-al-shabaab","tag-hiiran-region","tag-mogadishu","tag-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}