Forces loyal to Somalia's transitional government (TNG) on Tuesday retook the key southern port city of Kismayo from an opposing faction headed by General Mohamed Said Hirsi Morgan, a Mogadishu television channel reported.
"Kismayo is taken back after fighting overnight," TV HornAfrik reported. Independent sources confirmed the development.
A top official of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a group of opposition warlords including Morgan, confirmed that its fighters, who had moved into Kismayo on Monday, had pulled out for "tactical reasons."
"It is a matter of command-and-control facility of the war. Absolutely this is not a military defeat but a re-deployment of troops for strategic reasons," said the official, who asked not to be named.
He added that the troops, who were loyal to Morgan, had deployed on the outskirts of the port city and that they would capture Kismayo, Morgan's fiefdom between 1993 and 1999, "sooner or later."
The forces that recaptured Kismayo are from three clans and make up the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), which took the town from Morgan in June 1999 and came out in support of the transitional government that was set up in Mogadishu last year.
This loyalty pledge led the TNG to send logistical support to Kismayo. The TNG has nothing so formal as specially-trained government forces but can count on the military support of some clan-linked armed groups, such as the JVA.
The TNG has no real presence outside Mogadishu, and even in the capital its control is partial.
Earlier Tuesday, SRRC spokesman Mohamed Aden Ali Qalinle denied the reports of losing Kismayo.
"We still control Kismayo," he told AFP. "Seven from our side and 13 militia that were ruling the city of Kismayo illegitimately died in the battle," Qalinle said.
Both sides have reportedly sent more fighters to the area.
Rival alliances of armed factions have battled for about a fortnight in the area around Kismayo, which boasts one of only four seaports in Somalia.
Whoever controls Kismayo controls imports of large volumes of food and electronic goods, and exports of bananas and charcoal among other merchandise and commodities.
The TNG was formed with international support after months of talks among clan leaders, following a decade of anarchy that came after the 1991 fall of president Mohamed Siad Barre.
Morgan had been preparing for this latest offensive for more than a year, but the campaign only began in earnest with the formation -- in neighboring Ethiopia -- of the SRRC and the support that brought from other forces opposed to the government.
In mid-July Morgan deployed militiamen in Middle Juba, Lower Shabelle and Lower Juba (of which Kismayo is the capital) along the road leading to the capital to attract the JVA and to ward off any reinforcements that might come from Mogadishu to the north -- MOGADISHU (AFP)
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