United Nations Photo

A fighter (back to camera) of the Somali Government-allied Ras Kimboni Brigade walks along a road as a troop of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)’s Kenyan contingent runs in the opposite direction, during a joint advance on the port city of Kismayo.

As part of a two-month operation to liberate towns and villages across southern Somalia, yesterday Kenyan AMISOM troops moved through Kismayo, the hitherto last major urban stronghold of the Al Shabaab extremist group, on their way to the city’s airport without a single shot being fired. Al Shabaab, the once feared and brutal group, 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.