Kenyan authorities are pledging a full investigation into the helicopter crash Sunday that killed Security Minister George Saitoti, his deputy Orwa Ojode, and four others aboard the aircraft. Mohammed Yusuf reports for VOA from Nairobi.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki chaired a special Cabinet session that was also attended by lawmakers as Kenya officially began a three-day mourning period.

“The honorable Professor George Saitoti and honorable Orwa Ojode were highly respected members of parliament who served their nation diligently,” he said. “We will greatly miss their services to our nation. They were patriots and committed public servants.”

Kibaki called on Kenyans to honor the late ministers by maintaining peace and security, and promised a full investigation into the crash.

“As we embark on thorough investigations on the cause of the crash, I appeal to all Kenyans to remain calm,” he said. “I assure you all of full investigations, and the Kenyan public will be informed appropriately.”

Transport Minister Amos Kimunya says the inquiry will also look into how the country can improve its aviation industry.

“All the people who have [a] stake in this, the families, the public and every stakeholder, the manufacturers and all that, will be then be given a platform where we can then get the truth or get as much information, not necessarily to reverse what happened, not even to know what happened, but more importantly to even help the aviation industry into the future in terms of what needs to be done to avert similar incidents into the future,” he said.

The police helicopter carrying the ministers, two pilots and two bodyguards crashed minutes after taking off from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport early Sunday.

Both Saitoti and Ojode were leading voices of Kenya’s military operation in Somalia to fight the militant group al-Shabab. Kenyan authorities accuse the group of being responsible for a wave of cross-border kidnappings last year, as well as dozens of grenade attacks in Kenya.

A spokesman for a militia aligned with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government says troops are moving closer to al-Shabab’s principal remaining stronghold of Kismayo. The pro-government militia Ras Kamboni says the militant Islamist group is trying to rally civilians inside the port city to defend against the oncoming attack. Mohammed Yusuf reports.

The long-stalled offensive in southern Somalia, aimed at seizing control of Somalia’s third city Kismayo from al-Shabab, has gained momentum as African Union troops, Somali government forces and allied militias take more ground.

Abdinasir Serar of Ras Kamboni says the final push to Kismayo is expected to start in the coming weeks. He says that push will come on multiple fronts.

Our forces are 75 kilometers away from Kismayo, Serar says. We are planning to enter Kismayo through the seaport and several other towns — Bula Haji and Jilib, for example — and also want to come through all these directions to capture Kismayo.

African Union forces say they have captured the town of Bibi, which is 75 kilometers from Kismayo and 45 kilometers from Afmadow, another town that pro-government forces recently captured from al-Shabab.

There is growing concern for the safety of Kismayo’s tens of thousands of residents as the final military push approaches.

Serar says Ras Kamboni is monitoring the situation inside Kismayo very closely, and received an intelligence report that al-Shabab met with local clan elders to encourage them to fight.

Serar says the reports they are getting from Kismayo is that al-Shabab met with clan elders and told them to take weapons and fight against what they call non-believers. He says al-Shabab is likely not to put up a fight and may pull out of the port city.

However, multiple sources say that al-Shabab had set up a new defensive position in a place called Birta Dheer, midway on the road between Afmadow and Kismayo.

Birta Dheer is the main strategic position for the militants, and if that position is taken it may be difficult for al-Shabab to defend the port city of Kismayo.

With the recent loss of two key transit points, al Qaida’s Somali affiliate, for the first time in years, is facing what military analysts say is the likely end of the group’s once-powerful rule over much of Somalia

The future of al Shabab, as the al Qaida affiliate is known, is still difficult to predict, but military analysts say its hold on Kismayo, the port city through which its supplies move and from which it derives much of its financing, is threatened and that the fall of the other transit points has cut off key al Shabab supply routes to its western and northern fronts.

“The clock is ticking,” said a well-informed regional security consultant who’s long tracked the battle against al Shabab and who asked that he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic. “They cut off Shabab from their supply routes. It’s a big deal for the organization as a whole.”

The most recent blow came Thursday, when Kenyan and allied Somali forces captured the strategic crossroads of Afmadow, about 60 miles north of Kismayo. That followed the al Shabab defeat last week at Afgooye, which fell to African Union troops from Ugandan and Burundian pushing west from Somalia’s battered capital, Mogadishu.

Al Shabab once controlled nearly all of southern and central Somalia, but that territory has dwindled steadily in the past year. African Union forces pushed al Shabab out of Mogadishu last August, then Kenya launched a surprise invasion from the west in October. Ethiopian troops soon followed, pushing south across their own border with Somalia.

Kenya has long indicated that its end objective is to push al Shabab out of Kismayo, the southern port city that’s al Shabab’s most lucrative and important possession. Military strategists say there’s no way to take the city without first capturing Afmadow, a town of 50,000.

“It’s a commercial hub for almost the entire region,” said Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamed, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and a Somali analyst. With it now under Kenyan control, al Shabab’s hold is crumbling, he said.

“Basically, the entire al Shabab-controlled area is under siege,” Abdisamed said. “If you combine all those forces, the days of al Shabab are numbered.”

When the end might arrive, however, is unclear. Multiple sources said al Shabab had abandoned Afmadow without a fight and had set up a new defensive position halfway on the road between Afmadow and Kismayo at a place called Birta Dheer.

Kenya has been bombarding Kismayo from the sea, but a spokesman for a Somali militia that’s allied with Kenyan forces said any ground assault would wait till Afmadow was secure and it had become clearer how al Shabab planned to defend the city.

“We don’t have any plans of moving to Kismayo that fast,” said Abdinasir Serar, a spokesman for the Ras Kamboni movement, one of the Somali militias that are fighting alongside Kenyan troops. “For now we will settle in Afmadow.”

What happens if al Shabab loses Kismayo is also unclear. Analysts foresee a dizzying array of competing interests that include Somalia’s many clans and sub-clans, the politics of the neighboring countries whose troops are now inside Somalia and the often self-serving interests of the country’s political elite, now ensconced in Mogadishu.

Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Burundi all have their own national interests in Somalia, and their own Somali allies. While Uganda and Burundi have been protecting the internationally recognized but flimsy transitional government in Mogadishu, Kenya has been training Somali troops and building ties with Ras Kamboni, while Ethiopia has backed a local Sufi militia that’s at odds with al Shabab’s ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.

With steady military advances, each foreign power is carving out its own regions of influence, and there seems to be no coherent plan for how to unify all these regions under a central government in Mogadishu should the threat from al Shabab fade.

As for al Shabab itself, the group has proved quick to evolve in the past, and it could return once again to a more traditional guerrilla insurgency of shadowy rural movements and hit-and-run attacks.

Al Shabab’s rise to power occurred during Ethiopia’s previous invasion of the country. If Somalis once again find themselves under the thumb of their foreign neighbors, al Shabab may be able to reinvent itself again.

McClatchy Newspapers (Alan Boswell and Mohammed Yusuf)

Kenya has renewed its long-stalled offensive against al Qaida’s affiliate in Somalia, just days after the Kenyan government blamed the Somali Islamists for an apparent terrorist attack in downtown Nairobi.

For the second day in a row, Kenyan naval forces on Wednesday bombarded the Somali seaport of Kismayo, a key stronghold of Somalia’s al Qaida-linked Shabab insurgents, while ground troops attacked Afmadhow, a major town that Kenya says it must capture before advancing by land against Kismayo. A Kenyan military spokesman tweeted Wednesday night that Afmadhow had fallen.

Port fees at Kismayo are the Shabab’s primary source of funds, and its capture by Kenyan troops would be a major blow to the organization, which once dominated southern Somalia. Shabab control has been steadily shrinking, however, under military pressure, not just from Kenya but also from Ethiopian forces conducting their own offensive, and from Ugandan and Burundian forces under the African Union that have pushed the Shabab from Mogadishu, the country’s capital, where an internationally-backed transitional government hangs onto control.

Kenya has now formally joined the African Union peacekeeping force as well, possibly opening its military campaign to more direct military assistance from the United States, which shares the regional governments’ desire to curb the Shabab’s power and recognizes the transitional government in Mogadishu.

An assault on Kismayo has been expected for months, since Kenyan troops first invaded Somalia in October after suspected Shabab guerrillas had conducted a spate of kidnappings near the Somali border, including one in which a British tourist was killed. But the offensive stalled, and for months little has been heard from the battlefield on what Kenyan troops were up to.

That changed Tuesday morning, when residents of Kismayo reported that the city had come under bombardment from the sea. Kenya later said that one of its ships had opened fire after it came under attack from Shabab forces onshore.

On Wednesday, the bombardment resumed, residents said, describing a chaotic scene as many attempted to flee the city.

“Day and night aircraft fly over us,” said Mohamed, a resident reached by phone who asked that his full name not be divulged because of fear of Shabab retaliation. “People are afraid.”

The city’s Shabab-controlled radio station went off the air Wednesday afternoon, though it was unknown whether it had come under attack.

“Some residents have started to flee the city and are settling outside of town,” said a local freelance journalist who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

There were conflicting reports about the ground assault on Afmadhow, which straddles the main road to Kismayo, 60 miles to the south.

Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, a Kenyan military spokesman, used his Twitter account to announce that Kenyan forces had captured the town, which has been in Shabab hands since 2009, and that they were now focused on taking Kismayo.

But a spokesman for Ras Kamboni, a Somali militia fighting alongside Kenyan troops against Shabab, offered a different version of events.

“We have been fighting and shelling Afmadhow today,” said the spokesman, Abdinasir Serar. “Our plan was to take full control of the town today. For now, we settled at the outskirts of the town. We will launch another operation early in the morning.”

Most Kismayo residents refuse to talk to the media for fear of backlash by Shabab, which rules the city ruthlessly, demanding adherence to strict ultra-conservative Islamic laws and taxing the shipments through the seaport.

It is unclear whether the timing of the assault on Kismayo was tied to a suspected Shabab attack in Nairobi on Monday that wounded 28 and blew the roof off a used-clothing bazaar in a busy pedestrian mall. The Kenyan government now believes the explosion was caused by a bomb, possibly using fertilizer. The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday told American residents in Kenya that Monday’s explosion was the third attack since Saturday, when, the embassy said, grenades had exploded at a refugee camp and a hotel elsewhere in Kenya.

Boswell and Yusuf are McClatchy special correspondents.

Kenyan warships have shelled the Somali port of Kismayo. Kenya says it shelled the al-Shabab-controlled port city of Kismayo after Kenyan ships came under fire. Mohammed Yusuf reports.

Kenyan military spokesman, Cyrus Oguna, said “they fired at us and we fired back.” Oguna says Kenya Defense Force ships routinely patrol the area, but this is the first time that they have engaged in combat in Kismayo. He said he could not confirm casualties at this time.

Militants blamed Kenyan forces for the attack. A Kismayo resident who prefers to give just his first name, Mohamed, said that the first shelling started just after three in the morning.

The warships at the coast of Kismayo started shelling the port, Mohamed says the warships started the shelling and al-Shabab returned fire. He said the shelling stopped for a few hours before resuming midmorning.

The second shelling, which started just before 6:00 am local time, hit a house near the port, injuring an eight-year old boy.

The sister of the injured boy told said that the shell landed outside their home as the family was getting ready to start their day.

She says the mortar caused minor injuries to most of her family, but her her younger brother is the one who sustained serious head injuries. He is now in critical condition.

Getting information – especially in Kismayo, the last remaining al-Shabab stronghold – has been difficult. But for Mohamed all he wants is to tell the world is what is happening in his city.

Mohame says he has witnessed what has been happening around the seaport and he says residents are fearful of constant aircraft patrols, occasional attacks and to say anything publicly.

For the past couple of months, Kismayo has come under fire targeting al-Shabab from air and sea. But Somali government fighters and African Union forces have yet to launch a full-scale assault on the city to free it from al-Shabab control, as it has done with other strategic areas.

In another development, security officials in Somalia say al-Shabab fighters have ambushed a convoy escorting Somalia President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as he returned from a visit to the recently liberated town of Afgoye.

The president was not harmed and has returned Mogadishu. Several of his bodyguards were injured by the attack in the Alamada area between Mogadishu and Afgoye.

The U.N. humanitarian affairs office says it is still waiting for African Union and Somali forces to say which parts of the Afgoye corridor aid groups can access to help more than 400,000 internally displaced Somalis. AU and Somali government forces seized control of the corridor from militants last week. Mohammed Yusuf reports.

The head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Somalia, Justin Brady, told VOA his organization is working closely with other aid agencies that have some access along the Afgoye corridor, as security officials continue to assess the situation on the ground.

“We are working very closely with the U.N. security to assess one of the possible [ways] for the agencies’ funds and programs to move their life saving operations into the corridor, initially to make [an] assessment [of] what exactly is required of those populations,” he said. “And we stand ready with our contingency plan; there are resources in place, prepositioned in some cases, that will allow us to respond very quickly on urgent needs, and we look forward to the opportunity to be able to get the better idea of the exact requirements.”

On Sunday, Somali government and African Union forces cleared the last pockets of al-Shabab resistance from Elasha Biyaha, a region west of Mogadishu and home to more than 400,000 internally displaced refugees.

On Friday, Somali and AU fighters seized control of Afgoye, a major town in Elasha Biyaha. They have also reopened the road between Afgoye and Mogadishu. Somali officials say 20 al-Shabab militants were killed in the five-day operation to take the town.

Since the operation began, thousands of people have fled back to Mogadishu to escape heavy fighting in the area. Brady noted there were also people who fled to Baidoa, in Somalia’s Bay region.

“Some [IDPs] have moved out of the corridor to Mogadishu,” he said. “The latest report we have is some 10,000 have moved in or returned to their former homes in a state of disrepair, or into the existing camps in Mogadishu. We have also some reports of dislocation towards Baidoa. For those who are in the corridor, we [are] still assessing [the] situation as we gain access, to understand the exact needs of [that] population.”

Al-Shabab has held the Afgoye corridor for years in its campaign to overthrow Somalia’s U.N.-backed transitional government and impose strict Islamic law.

The group once controlled most of southern and central Somalia, but has steadily lost ground in the past 18 months to AU, Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces.

Somalia has not had a stable government since its former dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, fled the country in 1991.

A senior United Nations official says Somalia needs an authentic authority to adopt an interim provincial constitution and ending the transitional period on August 20th. The announcement comes two days after Somalia’s political players agreed in Addis Ababa that traditional elders meeting in Mogadishu to select the delegates for the National Constituent Assembly.

Speaking in Nairobi, the United Nations Special Representative Ambassador Augustine Mahiga says the significance of bringing traditional leaders together was to select representatives and delegates to the constituent assembly in the absence of direct elections or a referendum. He says the most legitimate representatives of the Somali people are elders.

“Ideally, this constitution should have been adopted by a referendum, but because of the security situation which doesn’t permit access to the rest of the country and we need to have this constitution adopted as one of the requirements of both Mbagathi and Djibouti agreement to end the transition. We need some kind of an authentic authority to adopt this interim of provincial constitution and these are authorities that will give us the representative.”

There are seven main groups representing Somali civil society coming from each of the major clans in Somalia. They are the religious leaders, women, business community, youth and professionals, ex-patriots and traditional elders.

Elders are to get their constituents to begin process of consultations in selecting representatives in the coming post-transitional government by August.

The selection of representatives will be easy for elders whose constituents are under the control of the government forces, but not for those whose constituents are still under the control of al-Shabab.

However, Ambassador Mahiga says they will have to look for other means to reach to their constituents for consultations and process of selecting their own representatives.

“In Addis Ababa we considered this issue, of sending elders back to areas which are not accessible for security reasons. We agreed that we should use any other means possible, including the extensive use of cell phone(s), which is one of the major technological means that Somalis use with tremendous creativity.”

No doubt many of these elders will have to remain in Mogadishu as al-Shabab threatens to take action against all the traditional elders who have taken part in the constituent assembly.

Nevertheless they have to bring elected representatives to Mogadishu so that they can take part in electing Somali’s new president.

Meanwhile, on the military front, Africa Union andSomali government forces gained momentum, Friday. They have taken control of Afgooye stronghold of al-Shabab which hosted the the rebel leaders and a center for pro-militant propaganda.

For the first time in years, people living in and around Somalia’s capital will be free from radio propaganda put out by militant group al-Shabab. Radio Andalus, the pro-al-Shabab station which was broadcasting in the outskirts of Mogadishu, went off the air after African Union forces took control of the area Tuesday. Mohammed Yusuf reports.

Abdiaziz Abdinur is a Somali freelance journalist based in Mogadishu. He was a frequent listener of pro-al-Shabab Radio Andalus.

For Abdinur, like other journalists who do not have access to the militant group’s leaders or press conferences, listening to Radio Andalus was the only way to get al-Shabab’s side of any story.

Abdinur told VOA that the last time he heard the station broadcast was on Tuesday afternoon, when al-Shabab said it repelled an attack by the AU and Somali national army in the Daynile district, northwest of Mogadishu. “The last reports broadcast by Radio Andalus were the fighting which took place in Daynile district,” he says, “where the government said it defeated al-Shabab. They have also broadcast a recorded interview by Abdikhadir Mumiin, one of al-Shabab’s leaders, who is in Galgala Mountains,” he said.

Radio Andalus was stationed in the town of Elasha-Biyaha, one of the areas targeted in the AU-Somali government offensive.

Elasha-Biyaha hosts hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Somalis who have fled from Mogadishu in recent years, trying to escape daily fighting between pro-government forces and al-Shabab.

Since the operation began, thousands of people have fled back to Mogadishu to escape heavy fighting in the area. On Thursday morning, government forces opened roads leading into the capital and allowed the IDPs to enter camps inside the city.

Abdinur says the closure of Radio Andalus will have an impact on Mogadishu’s population, who heavily depended on the radio to get information about areas that are still under the control of al-Shabab.

“Media-wise, they were good in providing information in areas under their control,” Abdinur says. “People depended on Radio Andalus to provide that information, since other media and journalists have no access in al-Shabab areas,” Abdinur stated.

But Abdinur says the station’s absence “also does give people in Mogadishu some sort of relief, since they won’t be listening to the group’s propaganda, for example, an interview of someone who wants to go and blow himself up.”

Al-Shabab has steadily lost ground in recent months as a multi-national effort to crush the group gains momentum.

However, the group’s ouster from Mogadishu has not restored full peace to the city. On Thursday, four men armed with pistols shot and killed Radio Shabelle political programs producer Ahmed Adow Anshur in the city’s Dharkanley district.

Somali government forces backed by African Union troops have launched an offensive to oust al-Shabab in the outskirts of Mogadishu, along the Afgoye corridor. Security officials say the aim of the assault is to bring security and stability to the more than 400,000 internally displaced persons in the Afgoye area, located west of Mogadishu. Mohammed Yusuf reports.

For the first time, African Union forces and Somali national army troops have attacked al-Shabab bases outside Mogadishu.

Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the AU force, known as AMISOM, told VOA his forces launched an offensive from Daynile district and were moving westwards, which will give them an entry point to Afgoye.

“Daynile district is completely in the hands of AMISOM,” said Ankunda. “We are now fighting over a small township called Elasha-Biyaha, which is on the way to Afgoye and the latest report that I have got is that our forces were controlling over 85 percent of that township.”

The Afgoye corridor hosts more than 400,000 internally displaced persons along a 30-kilometer stretch of road from Mogadishu.

It is where many people from Mogadishu have settled over the years as the bullet-ridden city faced intense daily fighting between pro-government forces and al-Shabab.

Humanitarian agencies have expressed fears of civilian casualties and called on all parties to the conflict to avoid use of excessive and indiscriminate force against civilians.

However, Ankunda says the AMISOM operation was carefully planned to avoid any civilian casualties and have advised IDPs (internally displaced persons) to stay in the camps.

“We worked very closely with our colleagues from the United Nations humanitarian organizations and we have asked civilians not to stray into areas where the fighting is taking place we have requested that they stay in the IDP camps,” said Ankunda. “We are working with UNOCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] to make sure that they deliver a humanitarian assistance.”

African Union forces effectively drove al-Shabab out of Mogadishu last year, greatly improving the security in the capital.

Afgoye corridor is one of the last remaining strongholds of al-Shabab outside Mogadishu. The 30-kilometer stretch served as training grounds for new recruits, a place for leadership to meet and center for pro-militant propaganda.

Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya is filling up again with a new wave of refugees fleeing conflict in parts of Sudan and South Sudan. According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees more than 7,700 people have arrived in the camp so far this year, 75 percent of them from Sudan and South Sudan. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Kakuma, Northern Kenya.

The U.N. refugee agency says they receive an average of 100 new refugees at Kakuma per day, mainly from South Sudan.

Refugees are citing tribal conflict, cattle rustling, indiscriminate killings and burning of houses in Jonglei state as reasons for fleeing.

Amour Dau, 31, is a mother of six from Jonglei state. She says she fled her home for fear that violence might spread.

There were some rebels, who came to our village, Dau says, and looted our belongings and burnt our houses, that’s why I came here to save my life. But I left behind my husband who is a government soldier.

Another refugee, Achol Deng, 37, lost her husband and one child in the tribal conflict between her Dinka tribe and the rival Murle. She says her happiness will depend on the sort of assistance she will receive in the camp.

I am not happy at what happened back home, she says, people were being killed, houses burnt, I had to flee and seek asylum here. If I settle well in the camp and get good care I will be happy.

Kakuma camp was first opened in 1992. It has hosted thousands of refugees who fled the civil war in Sudan, which ended in 2005. In December of that year, UNHCR began voluntary repatriations of thousands of Sudanese from the camp.

Jeff Savage, UNHCR’s senior protection officer in Kakuma, says South Sudanese prefer coming to Kakuma camp than going to other camps in Ethiopia.

“Many of them are coming to Kakuma because either they are used to being refugees here, repatriated or they heard from other relatives,” said Savage. “We are wondering why they are going to Kakuma, which is much further than the camps in Ethiopia for instance.”

The 20-year camp is designed to hold up to 100,000 people. As of this month, there were 94,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from 13 countries living there.