Somali insurgents battled Ethiopian and government troops with mortar and artillery fire, killing two people and wounding at least 16 others who were caught in the crossfire, witnesses and medics said.
Mortar attacks were launched against four separate areas in the capital on Sunday, targeting the seaport and former intelligence headquarters, where insurgent attacks against the transitional government are growing more sophisticated and deadly.
At least four people were wounded when one mortar hit a restaurant near the seaport, said Shamsa Ali Mude, one of the diners.
”They were shouting and crying,” said Ali Madey Abdalla, another witness at the restaurant. ”They were in shock.”
One person was killed in the blast, restaurant employee Qamar Haji Sa’id said.
Six civilians who were hit by shrapnel were taken to the Medina hospital in the capital, and more casualties were expected, nurse Amina Mahamed said. Doctor Mohamed Mo’lin said 10 wounded people and one corpse were brought to Keysaney hospital in the north of Mogadishu.
All those killed or injured were civilians, medics said.
The attack came as 18 members of a high-ranking United Nations delegation, led by assistant secretary general for political affairs Tuliameni Kalomoh, arrived in the government stronghold of Baidoa, 250km south-west of Mogadishu.
The group held talks with Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi about the possibility of sending United Nations peacekeepers to replace an African Union peacekeeping mission when their mandate ends in six months, said the country’s Foreign Minister, Ismail Hurre.
Last year Somalia’s transitional government and Ethiopian troops routed a radical Islamic movement, but insurgents thought to be linked to the group continue to stage attacks. Ethiopian forces had planned an early withdrawal.
Meanwhile, a Somali police chief leading a crackdown on insurgents in the lawless country was killed by his bodyguard, witnesses said on Sunday.
Colonel Abdi Mohamed Abdulle, appointed police commander of Somalia’s third largest city, Kismayo, died of his wounds after being shot in the leg on Saturday night, resident Abdullahi Ahmed Kulmiye said by telephone.
The bodyguard, who has not yet been identified, fled with several armed gunmen in a waiting Toyota van, the resident said.
The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
Abdulle was appointed earlier this year as police chief of Kismayo, one of the Islamic movement’s last strongholds before its fighters were defeated.
”We know that remnants of Islamic courts are still at large here and throughout the country,” said Asha Jama, another resident of Kismayo, 500km south of the capital, Mogadishu.
Somalia has been mired in anarchy since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.
Two new Islamic insurgent groups — Altawhid Brigades and Jihad in Somalia — claimed responsibility in a statement posted on the internet for a recent mortar attack against the presidential palace in the capital. A 12-year-old boy died in the attack. ‒ Sapa-AP