Heavy fighting resumed on Monday in Mogadishu as Islamic militia attacked to dislodge gunmen loyal to warlord Abdi Hassan Awale Qeydiid, who repositioned his fighters after fleeing deadly weekend clashes, witnesses said.
Rival sides pounded each other with heavy rounds of artillery, mortars and rockets in the south of the Somali capital, with terrified civilians fleeing the area as stray rounds landed on non-military targets, witnesses said.
Residents in the nearby K4 neighbourhood said stray mortar shells had landed from the battlefield in 6-Piano and Mogadishu Gaheyr University.
”Two mortar shells that were fired from Qeydiid position have landed in K4 area. His militia were responding to attacks by the Islamic courts who want to dislodge him,” said Ahmed Ismail, a resident in the area.
”A stray round has injured one person here,” added Muslima Ali, also a resident.
On Sunday, heavily armed Islamic militia attacked the warlord’s positions, sparking deadly clashes that forced the warlord to flee from his tiny stronghold, leaving a trail of death. He reappeared again, despite announcement from the Islamists that they had rid the capital of warlords.
On Monday, hospitals and rival militia sources said at least 39 people were killed, up from Sunday’s figure of 21 dead and nearly 100 wounded.
The deaths included 18 civilians, 15 Islamist militia and six warlord fighters.
The Islamists, who control swathes of southern Somalia, routed United States-backed warlords from the capital on June 5 and have been entrenching sharia law.
Qeydiid, alongside warlord Hussein Aidid — also deputy prime minister in the transitional government — spurned several calls to surrender and give up their weapons, dismissing the Islamists as a bunch of stooges paid by foreign terrorists to impose Islamic theocracy in the nation of about 10-million people. — AFP
