Kenyan forces 'capture' Somali rebel stronghold

Kenyan and Somali troops have captured Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo, the last rebel bastion of al-Shabab fighters, Kenya's military spokesman has said.

The port city has been a stronghold of the al-Qaeda aligned group al-Shabab.

Kenya's military said the operation was by a combination of Kenyan Defence Forces and Somali government troops.

The Kenyan troops are part of an African Union force trying to wrest control of the country for the newly elected UN-backed president.

A Kenyan military spokesman confirmed that parts of Kismayo had been captured and the rest was expected to fall soon.

At the weekend, Kenyan military jets had bombed the airport in Kismayo, destroying an armoury and warehouse used by Islamist militants.

Al-Shabab has been forced out of the capital, Mogadishu, and several other towns over the past year but still controls much of the countryside in south and central Somalia.

Some 10,000 people had fled Kismayo in the past week, the United Nations refugee agency estimated, as African Union forces (Amisom), government troops and pro-government militia advanced on the city.

Along with forces from Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti, Kenyan troops have been battling the group, which is said to have links to al-Qaeda, as part of an African Union peacekeeping force mandated with wiping out the figthers from their strongholds.

Kenya sent its troops into Somalia last October after the fighters were blamed for a series of raids on Kenyan soil
targeting its security forces as well as Western tourists.

Somalia has made progress in the past year in battling the group, who have wanted to impose their interpretation of Sharia law across the country since taking control of large swathes of south-central Somalia from 2007.