Somalia\u2019s militant group al-Shabab seized a town in the south of the country early on Friday after it was abandoned by the military and African Union-mandated (AMISOM) peacekeepers, residents said.<\/p>\n
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Somalia\u2019s militant group al-Shabab seized a town in the south of the country early on Friday after it was abandoned by the military and African Union-mandated (AMISOM) peacekeepers, residents said.<\/p>\n
The town of Leego, which lies about 130 km to the northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, is in Somalia\u2019s lower Shabelle region, where al-Shabab last week killed at least 12 peacekeepers in one of the deadliest attacks on AMISOM.<\/p>\n
Farah Ahmed, a resident of Leego, told Reuters AMISOM and Somali military forces had pulled out of the town early on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat same minute, al-Shabab entered to control the town… The town is now calm and al-Shabab fighters are in every part of the town.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear why the military and AMISOM had withdrawn from Leego.<\/p>\n
Al-Shabab is fighting to topple Somalia\u2019s Western-backed central government.<\/p>\n
The group was ejected from Mogadishu in 2011 and has since been chased from most of its other strongholds across the country.<\/p>\n
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Somalia\u2019s militant group al-Shabab seized a town in the south of the country early on Friday after it was abandoned by the military and African Union-mandated (AMISOM) peacekeepers, residents said. \u00a0 \u00a0 Somalia\u2019s militant group al-Shabab seized a town in the south of the country early on Friday after it was abandoned by the military …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_108372464460192_245495985553329":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[65,198,486,632],"class_list":["post-4558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-africa","tag-somali","tag-takfiri","tag-terrorist"],"yoast_head":"\n