So­mali of­fi­cials say their forces have re­taken two towns that al-Shabab mil­i­tants briefly cap­tured late Fri­day.

The gov­er­nor of the Lower Sha­belle re­gion, Ab­dulka­dir Mo­hamed Nur, tells VOA’s So­mali ser­vice that gov­ern­ment troops launched a coun­ter­at­tack and re­took Awd­he­gle and Mubarak, about 75 kilo­me­ters west of Mo­gadishu.

The African Union force in So­ma­lia, AMI­SOM, con­firmed So­mali gov­ern­ment troops had re­taken the towns.

The gov­er­nor said the mil­i­tants have been pushed three kilo­me­ters away from the towns and may make an­other at­tempt to seize con­trol of them. He said sol­diers have re­ceived re­in­force­ment and are ready to de­fend the towns.

At least four peo­ple were killed in the fight­ing, in­clud­ing two sol­diers, of­fi­cials said. Nur said gov­ern­ment forces have killed more than 20 mil­i­tants in the coun­ter­at­tacks, but there has been no in­de­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion of the claim.

Lo­cal res­i­dents said Fri­day they could still hear oc­ca­sional gun­shots. Res­i­dents also told VOA So­mali that the mil­i­tants have ab­ducted the leader of the lo­cal tra­di­tional el­ders, Has­san Nur Aliyow. His lo­ca­tion is not clear.

The towns were guarded by African Union troops un­til two months ago. As AU troops va­cated the area, se­cu­rity re­spon­si­bil­i­ties were handed over to So­mali sol­diers.

Al-Shabab once con­trolled most of cen­tral and south­ern So­ma­lia but has lost nearly all of its ter­ri­tory over the last five years to AU and So­mali gov­ern­ment forces.
An AU state­ment Fri­day said “the mil­i­tants are des­per­ately look­ing for op­er­a­tional bases af­ter be­ing pushed out of all their strong­holds.”

Last week, John Kerry be­came the first sit­ting U.S. Sec­re­tary of State to visit So­ma­lia. He said the United States would be will­ing to help build So­ma­li­a’s na­tional army and help in­te­grate re­gional forces into it.