Mortar rounds crashed into central Mogadishu on Sunday in a fourth day of battles between Islamist insurgents and allied Ethiopian and Somali government troops that have killed scores of civilians. Locals living near the main soccer stadium said bombs fired from the south of the capital started striking around 9.30am, spreading panic as fighting resumed.
Artillery fire rocked Mogadishu for a third day on Saturday as Ethiopian and Somali troops backed by helicopter gunships resumed a major offensive against Islamist insurgents and clan militiamen. Scores of civilians have been killed in what the International Committee of the Red Cross says is the capital’s worst fighting for more than 15 years.
Rebels shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu on Friday in a second day of battles as Ethiopian and Somali forces sought to crush an insurgency by Islamists and clan militia. At least 30 people, and probably far more, have died. Shells rained down on the capital and deafening tank fire shattered homes.
Shells rained down on Mogadishu in a second day of battles on Friday as Ethiopian and Somali troops sought to flush out militant Islamist insurgents in the worst fighting since a war over the New Year. After around 30 people died on Thursday, terrified residents said there was no let-up in the fighting across the bullet-scarred city on the Indian Ocean coast.
Helicopters pounded rebel positions and tanks rumbled through Mogadishu on Thursday as allied Ethiopian and Somali government troops launched a major push against insurgents, with 11 civilians reported killed. Ethiopian helicopter gunships fired rockets, residents said, in the first use of aerial power in the capital.
Clashes broke out in Mogadishu for the third day on Friday between gunmen and Ethiopian troops helping the government fight an insurgency many fear could plunge Somalia back into civil war. Witnesses heard shelling and cannon fire near a former defence headquarters, the scene of repeated fighting between insurgents and the government and its Ethiopian allies since Wednesday.
Ethiopian tanks guarding a Somali government base in Mogadishu opened fire on unidentified attackers on Thursday as clashes broke out in the capital for a second straight day. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda has named a ruthless Islamist commander as its leader in Mogadishu, the Somali government said.
Somalia’s prime minister appealed on Wednesday for ,6-million to fund a national reconciliation meeting in Mogadishu and said the next two weeks would prove if it could secure the violent capital in time. Eight people died on Tuesday when a barrage of mortar bombs launched by suspected Islamic insurgents struck the city’s presidential palace.
At least eight people were killed during a mortar bomb attack on Somalia’s presidential palace, hospital officials said on Wednesday. The strike on Tuesday came hours after President Abdullahi Yusuf flew into the anarchic capital, Mogadishu, where insurgents have attacked government forces and their allies on an almost daily basis.
Insurgents trying to attack African Union peacekeepers hit a restaurant in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing at least nine people in the building, residents said on Thursday. They said two other people were killed in the clash between the insurgents and the peacekeepers on Wednesday.