2013_10_20_AMISOM_KDF_Kismayo_Town_003

SOMALIA, Kismayo: In a photogaph taken 12 October 2013 and released by the African Union-United Nations Information Support Team 15 October, a Somali man walks down a street during a patrol by Kenyan soldiers serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in the southern Somali port city of Kismayo. October 16 marks two years since the Kenya Defense Force first intervened in Somalia under Operation Linda Nchi - meaning Operation Protect the Country in Kiswahili - following a series of kidnappings and cross-border raids along the Kenya-Somalia border by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group Al Shabaab. KDF forces were fully integrated into the African Union mission on 22 February 2012 and saw them capture the strategically and economiclly important port city of Kismayo from Al Shabaab in early October 2012 after a sustained 6-month advance across southern Somalia. AU/UN IST PHOTO / RAMADAN MOHAMED HASSAN.