By: Malyun Ali
Two Kenyan military officers inside a base near Kismayo airport. Photo by Abdalle Ahmed.
Nairobi (RBC) One thousand soldiers of the Kenyan Defense Forces in Somalia are ready to pull out from southern Somalia, the Kenyan defense minister announced on Thursday.
Cyrus Oguna who is the Kenyan military spokesman said that the pull out is following the new deployment of 850 soldiers from Sierra Leone to the port town of Kismayo where the Kenyan forces fought against Al Shabab last year.
Oguna also added that the decision to pull out 1,000 Kenyan soldiers from Somalia’s Jubba region came after Memorandum of Understanding between the Kenyan government and the United Nations which demanded to lessen the Kenyan forces in Somalia upon the deployment of the troops from Sierra Leone.
Last month Gen. Antoni Ngere of the KDF in Kismayo told Raxanreeb Online that they were expecting to minimize the number of troops inside Somalia once the Sierra Leone military reaches the ground.
On Wednesday the first battalion-strong from Sierra Leone military under the African Union mission in Somalia [AMISOM] landed at Kismayo town making the first peace keepers from the west Africa nation inside the horn of African country.
Kenya has sent its troops into Somalia on October 2011 to pursue Al Shabab fighters whom the Kenyan government blamed on several abductions and bomb explosions inside its territory.
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