At about 2am Friday morning, specialised units of the Kenya Defence Forces, reportedly backed by a Western Special Forces team as well as their Somali and Amisom allies, launched a major air and seaborne attack on the southern Somali port town of Kismayu, the last remaining bastion of the Somali insurgent group Al Shabaab.

Though details remained sketchy by the time of going to press, the meticulously planned dawn operation appears to have been a significant tactical and operational success that caught Al Shabaab completely by surprise.

The insurgents expected an attack from the south and had concentrated the bulk of their firepower on a handful of defensive positions in the south of the city.

The operation appears to have been designed to outflank the insurgents and cut off the city from the northern coastal strip and highway to Mogadishu, thereby significantly reducing their tactical mobility, besides sealing off potential escape routes.

Amisom force commander Lieutenant General Andrew Gutti on Friday night issued a statement saying: “Amisom troops have today successfully surrounded the port city of Kismayu. We urge all fighters remaining in Kismayu to lay down their arms.”  

Undoubtedly, the fall of Kismayu will be a major victory for the allied forces. In particular, the KDF, which has been dogged by allegations of ineptitude, will relish the victory and see it as a form of vindication.

READ: Capture of Kismayu will be milestone in control of coastline

Lying in wait

As the Amisom contingent operating in southern Somalia now moves to liberate Kismayu, a myriad challenges lie in wait. President Mwai Kibaki was quick to point at the bigger challenge ahead while congratulating the Kenya Defence Forces, who are under the Amisom mandate in Somalia, for what he described as the capture of the port city.

“There are extremist, terrorist and fundamentalist forces that will seek to destabilise Somalia and the region. To them we say, the time for war, civil strife and extremism is over,” said President Kibaki.

Despite the confused picture, what is certain is that Al Shabaab has no conventional capacity to fend off or resist an attack of this scale and sophistication – at least, not for long.

This is partly because it pulled out the bulk of its heavy weapons and fighters from the city a week ago.

Equally significant, and notwithstanding its posturing, Al Shabaab’s calculations are now primarily driven by one instinct — self-preservation.

Assuming the group can still make rational calculations, it must be aware that putting up a last stand against a superior foe in a built-up urban environment will be costly, likely to turn the public solidly against it and be ultimately futile.

An Al Shabaab weakened by the loss of Kismayu is unlikely to be amenable to peace or dialogue, and much less ready to surrender.

Less hardline breakaway factions may seek some political rehabilitation, but the fanatical elements will seek to continue the jihad.

For the hardcore faction the ultimate goal is clear — dig in for a long guerrilla campaign. The lush green riverine belt in the Jubba Valley is ideal guerrilla country — with good access to water, food and dense vegetation for cover.

The immediate military challenge for the allied forces is therefore twofold: First, to secure the whole city, district by district; second, to use counter-insurgency techniques and skills to prosecute the next stage of the anti-Shabaab war.

Related to this must be the issue of security, to be precise, how to plug the security vacuum left by the group’s retreat; suppress crime; curtail the activities of armed militias and prepare for the inevitable rise in insurgent-related violence.

The latter issue is particularly important, because there is evidence Al Shabaab intends to use non-conventional techniques to destabilise the city and demoralise its enemies.

Somali sources say there is credible intelligence that Al Shabaab has deliberately left a team of its crack units and experienced jihadis in the city to spearhead a new campaign of bombing and assassinations in Kismayu and the rest of the Jubba Valley.

The biggest and perhaps the trickiest challenge that faces the victors is how to create a credible and legitimate post-Shabaab administration to run the city.

Talks have been under way in the Karen area of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in the past few months aimed at cobbling together such an administration.

So far, the parties involved — most of them representatives of the major clans in the Jubba — do not seem to be anywhere near a global accord.

Rashid Abdi is Nation Media Group’s religion editor. Additional reporting by Fred Oluoch