Highlight:
Somalia Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke has expressed the dire need for the country to bolster its police presence in towns retaken from the al Shabaab militant group in order to free its overstretched military to focus on offensive action.
Summary
The Al Shabaab in Somalia have lost large swathes of the territories the militants earlier controlled, creating the other need to guard these territories so that the militants do not retake them.
“Now, the focus is going to be on the enemy, rather than on territory,” Omar Sharmarke told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “What we’re trying to do is take the offensive. You can’t keep military soldiers guarding cities.”
The recent offensives by AMISOM troops have seen the militants be driven out of their former bases in southern and central Somalia including areas in Bay and Bokool.
So far, the joint operations have seen six strategic town liberated; Rabdhure , Hudur, Ted, Weel dheyn andBurdhubow cities in Bakool and Gedo regions in Sector 3.
Issues troubling Somalia at the moment however have majorly to do with lack finances to pay the new military men trained by the AMISOM and Ethiopia forces. However with the country’s strengthening economy coupled with international goodwill, the resources to pay the military men will no longer be a problem.
The Somali National Army recently received advanced weapons to battle out Al Shabaab including a total of 54 armored and personnel carrier vehicles.
