The BBC goes on manoeuvres with the unit leading a growing offensive against al-Shabab militants.
It is just after five in the morning, and three pickup trucks - each bristling, like porcupines, with a dozen heavily armed soldiers - are tearing along a winding, sandy track in the dawn-grey wilderness of central Somalia.
Over the last three months these elite national army troops, members of the American-funded and trained Danab - meaning "lightning" - commando brigade, have played a central role in a broader uprising against al-Shabab which has seen the militants forced out of dozens of towns and villages in the centre of Somalia.
"Word spreads fast. Al-Shabab will already know you're here. That's why we had to leave camp so early this morning, to get on the road before they could plant ambushes," said Asli Halane, a civil-military liaison officer and the only member of the highly secretive platoon authorised to speak to us on the record.
Several hundred militants eventually withdrew from Bukure, but not before they had set fire to many buildings, and used explosives to destroy the town's concrete water tower in an act interpreted by locals as furious spite.A local shopkeeper, Khadra Farah, described how a retreating militant shot at her after burning her store.
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