Somali Shebab rebels abandon positions in capital

Somalia's Islamist Shebab rebels pulled out of key positions in the war-torn and famine-struck capital on Saturday, with the country's president proclaiming the city "fully liberated." "Mogadishu has been fully liberated from the enemy, and the rest of the country will soon be liberated too," Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told reporters. The Al-Qaeda affiliated Shebab insurgents abandoned several strategic positions overnight that were then taken over by government troops."We are very happy -- the fruits of bloodshed and the wars that we fought against the rebels are finally attained," Ahmed said. African Union-backed government troops have been battling Shebab rebels in Mogadishu in an offensive to secure aid delivery routes for victims of the drought threatening some 12 million people in Somalia and other Horn of Africa countries. "We have two enemies to fight - one of them is the Shebab, while the other is those who try to rob the people," the president said. "We will not tolerate looting, and anyone found committing such a crime will be brought to justice." Lawless Somalia is awash with rival militia factions. On Friday, food aid being handed out to famine victims in Mogadishu was looted by gunmen, who killed five people. However, a spokesman for hardline rebels, Ali Mohamed Rage, said Saturday's withdrawal involved merely "a change of military tactics." "The Mujahideen fighters applied military tactic changes to undermine the allied enemy of Allah, and you will soon be hearing a good news." Shebab fighters are waging a bloody campaign to overthrow the country's Western-backed transitional government, and control large areas of the south and centre of the country. Until Saturday morning, government and AU troops controlled just over half of Mogadishu, including the airport and port, while the Shebab controlled the city's north-east. "The enemy is defeated, they pulled out of Mogadishu -- and we will fight them to eliminate them from the rest of the country," Somalia's prime minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said. Since February, the African Union mission (AMISOM) with its 9,000 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers has clawed back key positions from the insurgents. Major Paddy Ankunda, a spokesman for the AU's AMISOM force in Somalia, said they were reacting cautiously to the Shebab's move. "We're getting reports that they have pulled out from all their positions. We are still verifying," Ankunda said. "We're very, very cautious because it could be a trap." The Shebab pullout will likely be a major economic blow to the rebels, whose control of Mogadishu's main Bakara and Suuqbaad markets have in the past netted the group up to $60 million annually through taxes, according to a UN report released last month. However, the pullout is unlikely to bring an end to conflict in Somalia, with pro-Shebab websites stressing the fight would continue. "The move will enable the Shebab to gain the upper hand over the African invaders," one website read, referring to the AMISOM force. The UN has estimated that nearly half of Somalia's estimated 10 million people require humanitarian assistance -- the majority in areas controlled by the Shebab, which expelled key foreign aid groups two years ago. The UN has officially declared famine for the first time this century, including Mogadishu and in four southern Somali regions, warning that famine could still spread further. The UN's Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit describes Somalia as "the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world today and Africa's worst food security crisis since Somalia's 1991-92 famine."