At least 5 of the stocks I hold it was because of the short...

At least 5 of the stocks I hold it was because of the short interest in them and are still on the list despite some nice sp gains.
http://www.thebull.com.au/premium/a/26582-top-10-shorted-stocks.html

Just because they short your stock doesn't mean they have secret knowledge or any more about the stock then you bought it to go long. Sometimes they short out of spite and wishful thinking because they missed out on the gains, sometimes they expect bad things.
With AJM the worst case scenario is that TO does happens and we have to walk away with some nice profits.

There is little reason to be paranoid if the stock is solid, have a look at some of the most shorted stocks and see how the increase in gross shorts affected the sp, at best they managed to cap prices for a short period but LT the longs were ahead.
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=GXY
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=ORE
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=SYR

As someone else said before, you'd have to be plain crazy to have shorted last Friday with TO offer on the cards.
Or else desperate crazy to build enough of a stake in AJM without pushing the sp much higher that you'd borrow shares to to sell to yourself.
Either way no reason to sell now as any TO offer would have to be at a decent premium to current prices to stand a chance and prices were on their way up even without it as the plant is near completion and we also just made ASX 300.