Somali forces and allied militias have pushed al Shabaab fighters out of the strategic town of Adan Yabal in central Somalia that the Islamist group has controlled for six years, officials and the African Union (AU) said on Tuesday.
The government, backed by AU troops and clan militias, says it has killed around 700 members of al Shabaab and recaptured scores of settlements as part of a months-long campaign to loosen the al Qaeda-linked group's control over large swathes of the country.
Mahamud Hasan Mahamud, the mayor of Adan Yabal in Middle Shabelle region, said the army and militias had taken control of the town and the surrounding district of the same name without encountering resistance on Monday.
"This district of Adan Yabal was very important for al Shabaab because it is the heart that connects the central regions and the south of Somalia. It was also their main base from which they manage the central regions," Mahamud told Reuters late on Monday.
He said the troops were sweeping the town, which is around 240km (150 miles) northeast of the capital Mogadishu, for mines.
"Seizing this town was the best opportunity for Somali government & the biggest setback to the terrorist which lost many districts in the last 3 months," the prime minister's spokesman Abdifitah Hashi wrote on Twitter.
The head of the AU mission in Somalia, Mohammed El-Amine Souef, described the town as a training ground for al Shabaab, and said the broader campaign was delivering "destructive and decisive" blows against the group.
Al Shabaab frequently abandons areas before army offensives, but the government often fails to hold recaptured territory, analysts say, allowing the militants to return.
"When they entered the town, al Shabaab were not there," Absher Mudey, a shop owner in Adan Yabal, told Reuters by telephone. "Most of the people fled because they were afraid that fighting would break out."
Reporting by Reuters