– Regional threat –
Shabaab fighters fled fixed positions in Mogadishu three years ago and have since lost most large towns to a 22,000-strong UN-backed African Union force, fighting alongside government soldiers.
But they still hold sway in vast swathes of the rural hinterland from which they regularly launch guerrilla raids.
Recent Shabaab attacks in Somalia have targeted key areas of government and security forces in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities and AU troops that they are winning the war.
Five blasts were reported on Monday, including a roadside bomb that killed at least two people when it ripped through a market busy with shoppers buying food to celebrate the breaking of the Ramadan fast with their families at sunset.
Security has been boosted in the capital, and Somali President Hassan Sheik Mohamud gave a televised address at the start of Ramadan saying his government would do all it could to stop attacks.
Foreign diplomats say the Shabaab threaten several nations in East Africa, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, who all have troops in Somalia.
The attacks come amid repeated warnings that Somalia risks sliding back into acute crisis less than three years after a devastating famine caused by weak rains, violence and aid cutbacks.
Somalia was the hardest hit by extreme drought in 2011 that affected over 13 million people across the Horn of Africa, with famine zones declared in large parts of the war-ravaged south.
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