By Cyrus Ombati

Kenya Defence Forces and their Amisom counterparts have agreed to establish a two-tier administration to run Kismayu town following its capture two weeks ago.

The troops together with the Somali National Army and Raskamboni Brigade met on Wednesday to pave the way forward on Kismayu administration.

Operations spokesman Col Cyrus Oguna said tier one will comprise of the chair, his deputy and ten assistants.  Two assistants will each head a department. The departments include: Security, Economics, Justice, Social and Relief.

The second tier will comprise of working parties, each having five members in the departments bringing the working number to 25, he added.

“It was unanimously agreed that leadership would be rotational. The meeting further agreed that findings of Igad meeting taking place in Nairobi will supersede any arrangements existing in Kismayu,” he said. 

The working parties meet every alternate day to brief the committee on the situation.

Oguna said security situation in Kismayu was improving with more militants surrendering to Amisom forces.  He added movement in and out of the town continues to be monitored at control points erected outside the town.

The move by the troops is aimed at ensuring security in the town before they hand it over to the local administration.

The troops’ mandate to enforce peace in Somalia ends on October 31 but its future functions in the country will be determined by the political road map of the new Somali Government. If the mandate of the troops with Amisom is not renewed or extended, the mission will transit into a Peace Mission, Chief of Defence Forces Julius Karangi has said.

lifeline

Gen Karangi said so far KDF and Amisom occupy 200,000 square kilometres of Somalia after taking over key towns including Kismayu, which had been the lifeline of the Al Shabaab militia.

He said the purpose of the KDF mission in Somalia was to degrade Al Shabaab, which has been posing a threat to Kenya and its borders.

“Now it is for the new government to consolidate the gains,” Karangi said when Brand Kenya presented messages of goodwill by school children from various schools to the Kenyan forces in Somalia.

Defence Minister Yusuf Haji said during the operation in Somalia, Al Shabaab lost over 3,000 of their men and assorted arms and technicals have been captured.

There are over 4,000 Kenyan soldiers in Somali under Amisom.