Fighters loyal to an Islamic militia and their secular rivals manoeuvred heavily armed trucks around city streets and reinforced their positions in Somalia’s capital early on Friday, following a battle that residents said was the most widespread fighting in 14 years.
Doctors reached by telephone in the city’s hospitals and clinics raised the death toll to 60, with more than 150 people wounded across Mogadishu on Thursday, Dr Abdi Ibrahim Jiya of the Somali Doctors Association said.
Militiamen from the Islamic Courts Union, which wants Somalia to be ruled by Islamic law, made a rare foray into southern and eastern parts of the capital and captured a strategic road junction in the centre of the city, known as K4. They also seized the historic Sahafi Hotel, which is owned by a member of the secular alliance, known as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.
The ideological fault-lines were reminiscent of Taliban Afghanistan. The alliance charges that the self-appointed Islamic court leaders have links to al-Qaeda, while the Islamic militants accuse the alliance of working for the CIA.
United States officials have repeatedly refused to confirm or deny any association with the alliance.
The Islamic fundamentalists portray themselves as an alternative force capable of bringing order to the country, which has been embroiled in clan fighting and without a real government since warlords overthrew long-time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The two sides engaged in fierce fighting earlier this month, with more than 140 people killed in eight days. But those clashes were confined to northern Mogadishu.
The two sides signed a ceasefire, but renewed fighting began in northern Mogadishu on Wednesday, when at least six people were killed.
It spread on Thursday, and thousands of civilians fled their homes on foot, some with children on their backs, trying to keep from being caught in the crossfire or struck by stray rockets, shells and bullets. Among those fleeing were residents who had left their homes in northern Mogadishu earlier to seek refuge in other parts of the city.
Overnight, the Islamic militia consolidated their gains from Thursday’s fighting and built up defensive positions in anticipation of a counterattack by the alliance, an Associated Press reporter observed. Scattered gunfire mixed with the explosion of mortar rounds throughout the night, but Mogadishu was relatively quiet on Friday morning.
A UN-backed government based in the central city of Baidoa, 250km north-west of Mogadishu, has not been able to assert authority elsewhere in the country, in part because of infighting. The Islamic leaders reject the government because it is not based on Islam. — Sapa-AP