Saturday 24,May 2025 {HMC} Somali Defense Minister Ahmed Moalim Faqi announced Friday that his country’s armed forces have liberated the entire Middle Shabelle region from the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab movement.
He said in a statement that his country’s battle against the movement has entered a new and decisive phase, praising the efforts of his country’s armed forces and popular resistance forces.
He also called on Somali political forces to unite and avoid rhetoric that could harm his country’s battle against the insurgent movement.
In recent days, the Somali army has intensified its military operations against the movement’s leaders and members, resulting in the deaths of many of them and the recapture of large areas in the central and southern regions of the country.
Earlier this week, he announced that his forces were engaged in fierce clashes with Al Shabaab militants in the southeastern regions.
He said that, in cooperation with the popular resistance, they launched an attack on militants of the movement that were entrenched in the forests in the border area between Hiraan and Middle Shabelle provinces, causing Al-Shabab to lose, by losing the Middle Shabelle region, its most important stronghold of influence in Somalia.
