Somalia's shaky frontline

THE helicopter pilot is worried. Any more than 20 minutes in this shattered front-line village and Somalia's Al-Shabaab militants could start lobbing mortars at their position.

- AW DHEEGLE

A WOMAN salvages burnt iron sheets where her home was destroyed allegedly by retreating insurgents at Awdheegle, one of several towns recently liberated from the Al-Qaeda-linked militants, Al-Shabaab, by the SNA in Somalia's lower-Shabelle region.

(AFP)

Roughly 1000 Somali National Army (SNA) forces are holding Awdheegle, a strategic town roughly 35 miles (60km) outside the capital Mogadishu, with the help of an AU contingent after it was retaken less than seven weeks ago from the Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

But their hold is shaky and the helicopter one of the few in the SNA fleet and showing its age is a tempting target for the insurgents just a few miles away.

"Five more minutes, and I would have left you," the pilot tells the reporters as they clamber back in, the chopper stuttering up and banking over the town's remains.

There is not much left to destroy in Awdheegle.

"I found my house demolished. I have nothing to rebuild it," said recently returned resident Abdi Osman Hassan, 65.

It is a similar story some 10 miles back towards Mogadishu at the deserted settlements of Sabiid and Canole.

The area is a cratered mess thanks to drone and air strikes, which SNA commanders said were the only option after the militants dug in, creating tunnels and littering the area with explosives.