Fresh fighting erupted on Thursday between Islamic militia and a United States-backed warlord alliance on the outskirts of the lawless Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing at least three as the clashes spread.
Stung by the loss on Wednesday of a key position in north-east Mogadishu, the alliance attacked the Islamists at the nearby village of El Arfid, north of the city, sparking a fierce exchange in which three were killed and seven wounded.
”The fighting between Islamic courts and warlords has started in the El Arfid and Dermoley areas,” said Moalim Ashi, an elder in the nearby town of Balad, about 30km from the capital.
More than 500 heavily armed fighters on both sides backed by scores of machine gun-mounted pick-ups were involved in the clashes that sent hundreds of villagers fleeing in terror, witnesses said.
”At least three people were killed in today’s fighting and seven more others were wounded,” Abdi Ibrahim, a doctor at the Al-Hikma Hospital, told Agence France-Presse.
The alliance had been regrouping in Balad with reinforcements from the town of Jowhar, some 90km) north of Mogadishu, with an eye to attacking the Islamists.
Witnesses said the fighting had cut the road between the capital and Jowhar.
Despite eyewitness accounts, officials with the Islamic courts denied involvement in the latest fighting.
”We are not involved whatsoever in the violence taking place in Balad or the outlying areas,” one official told AFP on condition of anonymity. ”The violence in Balad seems to be an internal feud among the people living there.”
In Mogadishu itself, sporadic gunfire could be heard around the north-eastern neighbourhood of Sukahola, where the Islamists seized alliance positions in well-coordinated attacks on Wednesday, residents said.
A day after the two sides pounded each other with heavy machine gun, rocket and artillery fire, the area was tense but generally violence free, although the death toll from Wednesday’s clashes rose by three to 10, they said.
”We fear fighting could erupt at anytime because the gunmen have not moved from the frontlines,” said Sukahola resident Amina Mohamed.
In addition to three people who succumbed to wounds overnight, doctors at Al-Hakma hospital, citing militia sources, said another three fighters had been killed on Wednesday, bringing that death toll to 13.
The latest fatalities brought to at least 78 the number of people killed in the most recent round of clashes that began last Wednesday, worsened Thursday and exploded on Saturday, when 30 people died.
More than 316 people have been killed and more than 1 500 wounded, many of them civilians, since the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT) and the Islamic courts began battling in February.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since 1991 and the country’s largely powerless transitional government, based in Baidoa, about 250km north-west of Mogadishu, has blamed both the alliance and the US for the fighting.
The US denies responsibility for the clashes, although it has refused to confirm or deny its support for the ARPCT.
But US officials and informed Somali sources have told AFP that Washington has given money to the ARPCT, one of several groups it is working with to curb what it says is a growing threat from radical Islamists in Somalia.
On Thursday, Islamic clerics drove through the streets of the capital in minibuses, calling on Muslims to turn out in droves for what they said would be a massive anti-US demonstration on Friday.
”Let us come together after Friday prayers and support the courts in their efforts to pacify the Somali capital and denounce the ugly face of the US and other satanic forces,” a cleric’s voice blared from the speakers. — AFP
