Warplanes launched air strikes on two al Shabaab bases over the weekend and a Somali military commander said his troops were closing in on the town of Afmadow, previously a rebel stronghold.
Under pressure to beef up security along its porous frontier after a string of attacks on Westerners by gunmen thought to be connected to the al Qaeda-linked rebels, Kenya is desperate to limit damage to its reputation as a relatively secure tourism and investment destination.
“Kenyan troops with heavily armoured vehicles have reached Qoqani village and are preparing to move on this morning,” Ali Mohamud, a resident of Qoqani which lies between the border and Afmadow, told Reuters by telephone.
“Somali forces passed by here yesterday too,” he said.
East Africa’s biggest economy has long looked nervously at its anarchic neighbour and its troops have made brief incursions into Somali territory in the past.
The latest operation appeared to be a significant escalation in military involvement but one which also risks dragging Kenya deeper into Somalia’s two-decade civil war and raises the risk of retaliatory attacks on Kenyan interests by al Shabaab.
Somali Colonel Janwaase Mahdi told Reuters his soldiers were advancing on the town of Afmadow, near an al Shabaab base hit by air strikes on Sunday. A Somali military commander said the rebels later fled the area.