Al-Qaida group withdraws from its last Somali bastion

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Stringer / AFP - Getty ImagesThe al-Qaida-allied al-Shebab militant group said it had left the city of Kismayo, seen above Friday, after it was attacked by a Kenya-Somalia force.By NBC News wire serivesMOGADISHU, Somalia -- Somalia's al-Shabab rebels withdrew from the southern Somali city of Kismayo overnight, the rebel group and residents said Saturday, a day after Kenyan and Somali government forces attacked the militants' last bastion.

Follow @NBCNewsWorld “We moved out our fighters ... from Kismayo at midnight,'' al-Shabab spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, told Reuters.

He threatened to strike back soon. “The enemies have not yet entered the town. Let them enter  Kismayo which will soon turn into a battlefield,” he said.

African Union troops from Kenya, Uganda and Burundi have combined over the last 18 months to kick al-Shabab out of the Somali capital Mogadishu and take a series of smaller towns that the insurgents fled to.

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