Kenyan and Somali forces were poised to close in on Islamist rebels in their southern Somali strongholds as Paris announced that a Frenchwoman, whose kidnapping spurred Kenya's cross-border incursion, had died. Kenya's military stormed across the border on Sunday to support Somali government troops in a risky attempt to secure the frontier and its hinterland.
The operation follows a wave of kidnappings by suspected militants that have threatened the East African country's multi-million dollar tourism industry. A Kenyan military spokesman said Kenyan and Somali government troops had killed 73 rebels during fighting, but al Shabaab denied it had suffered any casualties.
"We killed the 73 rebels during our artillery bombardment operations and so far the military has secured three towns... no casualties were reported on the Kenyan side," military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir told Reuters in Nairobi, though he admitted heavy rains were hampering troops from advancing. A senior Somali commander said the operation's aim was to rid Kismayu, a port city that serves as al Shabaab's nerve centre for operations, of the militants.
"We are determined to cleanse al Shabaab from Kismayu and then from all of Somalia," General Yusuf Hussein Dumaal, head of government troops in southern Somalia, told Reuters by phone from Taabto village on Wednesday. Kismayu is about 120 km (75 miles) to the south-east of Afmadow, where the rebels have been fortifying their defences, digging tunnels and pouring in battle wagons mounted with heavy machineguns to try and stop the advancing troops.
Residents said al Shabaab had detained 22 civilians, including six women, whom the group accused of collaborating with Kenyan and Somali forces. Al Shabaab said Kenyan troops were in the towns of Taabto, Qoqani and near the border town of Elwaq. Residents said they saw Kenyan tanks alongside Somali troops in the Gedo region, near Busaar, about 40 km (25 miles) deeper inside Somalia.
The Frenchwoman, 66-year-old wheelchair-bound Marie Dedieu was seized from the island of Manda on Kenya's northern coast on October 1. Gunmen whisked her on a speedboat to Somalia. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero confirmed Dedieu's death and demanded her body be handed to authorities. "France is shocked at the total absence of humanity and the cruelty that the kidnappers have shown with regard to our compatriot, and we want them to be identified and face justice," Valero said, adding that Paris could not confirm the date or cause of death.
Paris updated its travel advisory, warning anyone who goes to the northern frontier and east of Kenya, Somalia and its periphery or near there "is risking their life and freedom". Another British woman and two Spanish female aid workers were kidnapped in the past few weeks, abductions for which al Shabaab denies responsibility and which it says Kenya is using as a pretext to launch their attack.
On Wednesday, a remotely detonated bomb exploded near the seaport in Mogadishu, wounding six people, a day after a suicide bomber killed six people in the city. There have been no claims of responsibility for those relatively small-scale attacks. Al Shabaab launched its deadliest attack ever in Somalia when a suicide truck bomb killed more than 70 people earlier this month.