The Somali government on Tuesday says it will recapture Kismayo, the strategic southern port town, from the Al-Shabaab Islamist fighters who seized it last month.
"We will return Kismayo in government hands and we will form anall-inclusive administration for it soon," Abdiresak Ashkir Abdi, Minister for Reconciliation, told reporters in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
Fighters of the Al-Shabaab group last month seized control of the strategic city of Kismayu after three days of fierce fighting with local clan militia that had been controlling the town for nearly a year.
Nearly 70 were killed in the fighting that also left more than 150 others wounded.
Kismayu, 500 km south of Mogadishu, is the provincial capital of Lower Jubba region in the south of Somalia and is the third largest city in the country. It has an airport and a port that serves the southern part of the country and as far as northeastern part of neighboring Kenya.
Speaking at news conference in Mogadishu, the minister said that the capture of Kismayu is against the reconciliation efforts by the Somali transitional government and a break of the ceasefire agreement with a faction of the Somali opposition.
"We will seek the help of even other countries to get them (Al-Shabaab) out of the city as soon as possible and we strongly condemn their occupation of Kismayu," Abdi said.
The Al-Shabaab Islamist movement has been opposed to the agreement signed between the transitional government and a faction of the opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) in Djibouti in June.
The group is listed by the United States as a terrorist organization and its leaders are wanted by the United States for links with terrorism.
Source: Xinhua, Sept 02, 2008
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