"The militants left
town early this morning but they are not far away," said Abdiweli Adan,
an elder in a town close to Qandala which the IS-linked group occupied
on Wednesday.
He said the group's black flag still
flew over government buildings in the small seaside town on the Gulf of
Aden coast of Puntland, a semi-autonomous state in northern Somalia.
"Some
fishermen saw them staying close by in mountainous enclaves," said
Adan, who added the militants left as they had arrived, peacefully.
A
security official in the regional capital Bossaso said the threat of an
arriving force of Puntland soldiers had scared the militants off.
"Puntland sent hundreds of special
forces to deal with the terrorists. Unfortunately, they have run away
even before the forces reached the town," said Cabdirisak Mohamed, a
security official in the capital Bossaso, about 70 kilometres (45 miles)
west of Qandala.
Mohamed dismissed the takeover of Qandala as "a desperate attempt to draw attention."
The
militants — led by former Shabaab cleric Abdiqadir Mumin — switched
allegiance from Al Qaeda to IS a year ago but have done little since
apart from issuing occasional promotional videos.
Nevertheless,
in late August the US State Department named Mumin a "global terrorist"
making him a potential target for US drone strikes which are regularly
carried out against jihadists in Somalia.
Abdukadir
Said, a trader from Qandala said aircraft flying over the town may have
spooked the militants. "There were aircraft hovering over Qandala during
the last six hours" before they left, he said.
Once a
pirate stronghold, Qandala is an ancient trading and fishing town whose
main significance is its proximity to Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden,
where Al Qaeda and IS groups both operate. In the past the Shabaab has
been resupplied with weapons and fighters sent from Yemen.
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