ISIS-linked group abandons Somali town after brief occupation

A breakaway group of around 50 Somali militants who declared loyalty to the Islamic State jihadists abandoned a small port town on Thursday a day after occupying it, residents and an official said.

Abdiweli Adan, an elder in a town close to Qandala which the ISIS-linked group occupied on Wednesday 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.

A security official in the regional capital Bossaso said the threat of an arriving force of Puntland soldiers had scared the militants off.