came back last month after the Shebab left, because it was not safe before," said Abdulah Abubakr, sitting beside a bullet-scarred building in Mogadishu's northeastern Tawfiq district, a former Shebab stronghold.

"The Shebab would beat us, they would even kill people without questioning, and then there was heavy fighting," added the 70-year-old former truck driver.

After four years of bitter battles, African Union-backed government troops forced the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab to pull out of key positions in August, leaving die-hard rebel pockets on the edges of the city.

"The security is better, because the fighting has mostly stopped," said Sara Adan, a mother of seven, selling camel milk in a small street market.

She returned home to Tawfiq a month ago after fleeing to a government-held district, fearing her teenage boys would be taken as child soldiers by the insurgents.

"They (the Shebab) wanted my sons to fight for them, and I feared we would all suffer if they did not go with them," Adan said.

The Shebab earned a fearsome reputation imposing a hardline version of Sharia Islamic law -- banning Western culture, imposing a dress code on men and women, and restricting the distribution of foreign aid.

Improvements are relative. Mogadishu, at civil war since 1991, remains one of the world's most dangerous capitals, and the UN has declared famine in the camps for desperate families seeking aid that have sprung up across the city.

"Things are very, very far from good in Mogadishu because we have no jobs, no money, no food," said Mohamed Hassan, an unemployed father of six.

Many are fearful of Shebab threats to scale up use of suicide bombers, after the insurgents carried out their worst ever attack in the city last week, killing at least 82 people with a truck loaded with explosives.

Shebab leaders said Wednesday they were sending "hundreds" of gunmen to bolster remaining fighters in Mogadishu's outskirts.

Empty bullet casings lie scattered on the dust, heavily armed soldiers stand at street corners, while pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns patrol the district.

"The Shebab won't stop their attacks, and there is no way to stop people who want to die from exploding themselves," said Ibrahim Kasim, an elderly man.

But the pullout of the Shebab has allowed some areas of the city to return to relatively normal life, and off a small side street, the chanting of children in a tin-shack school can be heard, learning Islamic holy verses.

"People are still scared, because they fear that the Shebab will return," said Abdirahman Mohamed, a soldier with Somalia's weak Western-backed transitional government, working alongside African Union forces.

"But things are getting better, the fighting has calmed down here."

At night, the crackle of gunfire and occasional heavier thump of a mortar round can still be heard, but it is a considerable improvement from earlier this year, when fierce gun battles would regularly rage for hours.

A final push to drive out Shebab diehards in north-east Mogadishu was launched at the weekend by AU forces, with Ugandan troops seizing strategic positions from the rebels.

"Of course there are still problems," said Ugandan Lieutenant-Colonel Kayanja Muhanga, speaking as he led a patrol through the streets without body armour or helmet, something that would have been too dangerous just months ago. Continued...