Al-Shabab retreating from Mogadishu, reports say

Al-Shabab fighters have reportedly vacated their strongholds in Mogadishu ahead of a government offensive.According to sources, the group has been pulling out all its weapons and vehicles from its main stronghold ever since they heard the reports of an imminent government attack.Other reports also suggested that other Al-Shabab strongholds, including the Daynile district, have witnessed large movements of military personnel and equipment.It is unclear if this is a military tactic that Al-Shabab is employing.In addition, five people were killed and dozens of others injured on Sunday in shelling that rocked parts of the Somali capital Mogadishu, medics and witnesses said...Other sources said the group has also withdrawn all its fighters and weapons from Daynile district, another stronghold which is located outskirts of Mogadishu.The government announced the planned offensives against the powerful rebels in a bid to take over the security of the capital.
  However, Al-Shabaab’s spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohammud Raghe (Ali Dhere) termed the government plans as just another over publicized one that would always gone to disappoint.“The reports from the TFG that it wants to attack us are just another unworthy warning, which has been going around since Omar Hashi era, it wouldn’t happen,” he told reporters in Mogadishu last week.
   
Al-Shabaab, which alleges to have links with Al-Qaeda terror network, controls large chunk of the country’s southern regions while the transition government is confined in few blocks of Mogadishu.JR/HGL