20111019
Reuters
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Torrential rain and thick mud bogged down Kenyan and Somali forces advancing on al Qaeda-linked rebels in the southern Somali town of Afmadow, a military commander said on Wednesday.

Residents have been fleeing the rebel stronghold as the town braces for the next phase in an offensive launched on Sunday by Kenya, along with Somali forces, in a high-stakes bid to secure its border after a wave of kidnappings by suspected militants.

"The only thing that is hindering us are the rains that have been pouring down," Jawaase Mahdi, a commander of Somali government forces told Reuters by telephone. He said he was speaking from Haye, which he put at about 30 km (18 miles) from Afmadow.

Columns of al Shabaab battle-wagons mounted with heavy machine guns and hundreds of combatants have rushed to reinforce Afmadow, a strategic transit point for goods trafficked illegally through the rebel-controlled Kismayu port.

"Al Shabaab are regrouping in Afmadow to try and defend against our advancing forces. They have deployed about 600 fighters," Mahdi said.

Kenyan officials have remained tight-lipped on the details of the operation but a military spokesman said on Tuesday Kenyan troops were 100 km (62 miles) inside Somalia in Qoqani, which is about 50 km to the west of Afmadow.

Kenya's incursion into Somalia is a major escalation that risks sucking the region's biggest economy deeper into its anarchic neighbour's two-decade civil war.

Al Shabaab has waged a bloody campaign since early 2007 aimed at toppling a government it sees as a Western stooge.

Amid reports of internal rifts and a shortage of funds, the militants pulled almost all their troops out of Mogadishu in August, handing effective control of the coastal capital to the government for the first time since the 1991 overthrow of a dictator. But the insurgents still control large chunks of Somalia's south and central regions.

A deadly suicide bomb attack on Tuesday in the capital, however, underscored the security challenges facing President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's peacekeeper-supported administration.

The government blamed al Shabaab for the blast, which killed six people according to the city's ambulance service. A rebel-run radio station denied the group was behind the attack.

"The target of yesterday's explosion and who carried it out are not yet known," Radio Andalus said on Wednesday.

The suicide bomber lost control of his car when security forces on foot patrol in the mortar-pocked capital approached him, the government said.

"We will not be deterred by these cowardly acts," said Somali Defence Minister Hussein Arab Isse in a statement.

"We ask al Shabaab to face us in the frontlines instead of attacking soft targets, innocent civilians," he said.