At least seven people were killed and 14 wounded on Thursday as clashes between radical Islamic forces and a United States-backed warlord alliance flared in the lawless Somalia capital, residents said.
The two sides pounded each other with heavy machine guns, rockets, artillery and mortar fire in four residential districts in southern and northern Mogadishu, as hundreds of civilians fled the fighting that resumed on Wednesday, they said.
”Three people have been killed and five wounded in clashes at K4 neighbourhood in south Mogadishu,” said Ahmed Ibrahim, a resident who fled the area.
Other witnesses said four people were killed and four others wounded in the northern Sisi neighbourhood, but the exact casualty figure there was still unclear because most civilians had fled the area after previous clashes, residents said.
The heavy fighting extended to southern Mogadishu from Sisi, which was the centre of clashes between the factions earlier this month in which more than 140 people, mainly civilians, were killed in the deadliest fighting Mogadishu has seen in years.
That fighting ended last week with the two sides observing a tenuous, unsigned truce, but militiamen continued to patrol their territories.
The fighting pits Islamists against the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), which was set up in February with US backing to curb the growing influence of Islamic courts and track down extremists, including al-Qaeda members, that they are allegedly harbouring.
The Islamists deny the accusations made by the militia, whose members include ministers in the transitional government as well as wealthy businessmen.
Witnesses said there was heavy fighting on Thursday in the Daynile district south of war-torn Mogadishu and Galgalato, 10km north of the capital on Thursday, and expressed fear that it would spread to other neighbourhoods in the city.
”In Daynile, shelling of rival territory is taking place and about five people have been wounded,” said Mohamed Hassan Liban, a resident.
Galgalato resident Mohamed Roble ”Anbar” said it was impossible to give the casualty figures since rival militia had engaged in deadly street duels.
But Mogadishu hospital sources said they had received 14 injured people.
Elders desperately tried to contact militia commanders to secure a ceasefire as new militiamen erected more roadblocks on city streets.
More than 220 people have died in clashes between the two factions.
The largely powerless Somali transitional government, based in the regional town of Baidoa, about 250km north-west of Mogadishu, has blamed both the alliance and the US for the fighting.
The clashes have continued despite calls by the United Nations and African Union for a truce and dialogue.
The Horn of Africa nation of about 10-million has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 fall of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre plunged it into anarchy, with warlords battling for control of a patchwork of fiefdoms.
More than a dozen attempts to restore stability have failed, and the current government has been racked by infighting and unable to assert control. — AFP
