Somalias al Shabaab militia leaving Mogadishu

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Somalias al Shabaab militia leaving Mogadishu

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Militants fighting to topple Somalias government were abandoning their bases in Mogadishu.

06 August,2011 08:51 pm

Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, spokesman for the al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab movement, told a local radio station that the retreat that started late on Friday was tactical and that the militants would hold their positions elsewhere.“We have abandoned Mogadishu but we remain in other towns,” Rage said on the al Shabaab-run Andalus radio station.African peacekeepers and Somali government forces have been steadily wresting control of the rubble-strewn capital from the militants this year. Al Shabaab has never previously entirely abandoned Mogadishu during the course of a four-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people.Government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said their withdrawal from the capital was a “golden day” for Somalia.The Horn of Africa country has been without effective central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre 20 years ago.