SOMALIA, Kismayo: In a handout photograph taken 02 October by the African Union-United Nations Information Support Team and released 03 October, a fighter with the Ras Kimboni Brigade pro-government militia, stands with a soldier from the Kenyan Contingent of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in front of a vehicle that was destroyed a week earlier by Kenyan Air Force missile strikes inside a warehouse at Kismayo airport, formly under the control of the Al-Qaeda-affilated extremist group Al Shabaab. An joint-advance on the Somali port city of Kismayo by Kenyan AMISOM troops, the Somali National Army (SNA and the pro-government Ras Kimboni Brigade militia yesterday moved into and through Kismayo, the hitherto last major urban stronghold of Al Shabaab. The fall of Kismayo is the culmination of a two-month operation to liberate towns and villages across southern Somalia and Kismayo itself form Al Shabaab, the once feared and brutal extremist group, which has lost a succession of strategic towns and villages across Somalia to AMISOM and SNA forces in sustained operations against them since they withdrew from fixed positions in the capital Mogadishu in August of 2011. AU-UN IST PHOTO / STUART PRICE.
