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The president of Puntland: “ our soldiers captured the battle zones of Galgala mountains from Al-Shabab”

Storyline:National News

The president of semi-autonomous regional state of Puntland Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas spoke about the skirmishes erupted between Puntland forces and Al-Shabab fighters in Galgala mountains.

Abdiweli stated that the first phase of the fighting started from 27th to 29th of December 2014 which resulted death roll of 34 Al-Shabab fighters and 17 Al-Shabab injuries.

“The second phase of the fighting started 3rd of January this year (2015) and we killed 20 Al-shabab members And 29 of them sustained injuries” Gaas said.

He added that the areas which Puntland forces captured including Hoor, dhagah Dheer, dharkeen and Din Digleed.

On the other hand, Al-Shabab has not yet commented on that fighting.

“ The fled away Al-shabab fighters went to the northern part of the country, it could have been better if our neighbor (Somaliland) would collaborate with us to eradicate Al-Shabab fighters” Abdiweli said.

The president called upon Puntland citizens work with government hand in hand and support its forces as to uproot Al-Shabab.

Puntland declared last year that they had concluded the fighting operations in Galgala and at the same time took over the control of those areas but now fighting has erupted again from the same areas and it seems that the fighting is escalating day after day.

When Abdiweli Gaas was elected as the president of Puntland, he mention that the fighting operation which was going on in southern parts of the country led some of Al-Shabab fighters to seek hide-outs in Puntland state and urged AMISOM to be positioned the areas bordering Puntland and regions of the country, so as to prevent fleing fighters from entering puntlan, but that hasn’t been materialized yet .

This comes a time when former Al-Shabab leader of Galgala mountains Sheikh Mhamed Atom surrender to the federal government of Somalia last year and UN Security Council Cleared him of international sanctions.