Somalia Deploys Forces in Captured Former al-Qaeda Bastion

Somalia deployed government soldiers in the center of the port city of Kismayo, three days after African Union forces captured the stronghold of al-Qaeda-backed Islamist militants, an eyewitness said.

“Armed government forces together with armored vehicles have been seen in the city,” Ibrahim Abdi Sheikh, a businessman in Kismayo, said in a phone interview today. General Ismail Sahardiid, the general commander of Somali forces in the southern Juba region, didn’t answer his mobile phone when called for comment today.