The African Union force in Somalia said Saturday it had found a large weapons cache left behind by Islamist Shebab rebels who pulled out of the capital Mogadishu one week ago.

The AU troops found 137 155-millimetre artillery shells at a disused house in the city's Bakara market on Friday. The shells were later destroyed.

A spokesman for the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said the shells were stockpiled for use in making improvised bombs as the insurgents did not have weapons to fire the shells.

"The extremists were storing up large stocks of munitions in order to make improvised bombs to launch a campaign of terror in Mogadishu," the spokesman, Paddy Ankunda, said in a statement.

The Shebab made a surprise withdrawal last weekend from Mogadishu where they had been battling to topple the AU-protected Somali government. The rebels said the pull-out was a tactical move.

Observers said internal wrangles, losses in the fight for Mogadishu and a possible change of military strategy explained the withdrawal.

The 9,000-strong AMISOM and Somali government troops have been moving cautiously to positions abandoned by the rebels in a bid to secure the war-riven city, where more than 100,000 people have fled to seeking help due to severe drought.

On Tuesday, AMISOM commander Major General Fred Mugisha called for an urgent deployment of 3,000 more troops for the force as authorised in December by the UN Security Council to boost security operations.

The Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab still control large swathes of southern and central Somalia.

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