Kismayo port recaptured at dawn

The southern port of Kismayo has been recaptured in a counter-offensive just one day after it was seized by opposition militia, local and humanitarian sources told IRIN. The Transitional National Government (TNG) said the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) forces regained control over the port city of Kismayo, 500 km south of Mogadishu, on 7 August. “Kismayo is in the hands of the JVA forces,” Abdirahman Dinari, the director of information of the TNG, told IRIN on Tuesday. The town fell after a surprise counterattack by the JVA on Tuesday morning. “The JVA forces attacked at 0500, and by 0700 [local times] Morgan’s forces had been pushed out,” Dinari said.

Humanitarian and security sources confirmed to IRIN that Kismayo had been retaken by the JVA. “Kismayo was retaken with a minimum of fighting this morning,” one source told IRIN on Tuesday. No casualty figures were available, but sources told IRIN that the fighting on Monday and Tuesday had been light, and that they “expected casualty numbers to be in the tens”.

Kismayo, the third-largest town in Somalia, had been captured from the JVA by the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC) militia, led by General Muhammad Sa’id Hirsi Morgan, on Monday. The town had earlier been in the hands of the JVA since June 1999, when it expelled Morgan’s forces. The SRRC is a grouping of southern factions opposed to the TNG, while the JVA is a pro-TNG grouping of Marehan, Ogadeni, and Habar Gedir clans.

The SRRC, however, denied that Kismayo has been retaken by the JVA. On Tuesday AFP quoted SRRC spokesman Muhammad Ali Adan Qalinle as saying: “We still control Kismayo.”