United Nations Photo

Somali youths pull donkey-drawn water carts past sacks of charcoal as a convoy of the Kenyan contingent serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) makes its way through the port city of Kismayo.

As part of the two-month operation to liberate towns and villages across southern Somalia, yesterday Kenyan AMISOM troops moved into and through Kismayo, the hitherto last major urban stronghold of the Al Shabaab militant group, without a single shot fired. A once feared and brutal extremist group, Al Shabaab has lost a succession of strategic towns and villages across Somalia to AMISOM and Somali National Army (SNA) forces in sustained operations against them since they withdrew from fixed positions in the capital, Mogadishu, in August of 2011.