Mogadishu

Islamists who control Mogadishu and a large swathe of southern Somalia have opened a sharia court to serve two government-controlled regions, officials said on Monday. The Islamic movement has set up nine new courts in areas it has seized, but it is the first time the Islamists have established a court in an area they do not yet control.

Fighting surged in Mogadishu on Monday between Islamist militias and fighters loyal to the city’s last warlords, pushing the death toll over two days to at least 60 and pounding a key hospital with artillery and gunfire. Residents feared the death toll would climb even further in the most ferocious fighting in the capital since the Islamists seized it a month ago from an alliance of United States-backed warlords.

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.

The Somali transitional federal government has called for the powerful Islamist militia to be excluded from peace talks this week after sparking clashes in the capital that killed at least 21 people on the weekend, officials said on Monday. Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aidid said the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia militants had violated a truce deal.

Somali Islamists said on Thursday they had arrested two Muslim militiamen accused of shooting dead two people this week during a protest in central Somalia against a ban on watching the World Cup. The pair is to be tried, possibly for murder, under Sharia law according to two senior clerics involved in the case.

Somali Muslims who fail to perform daily prayers will be killed in accordance with Qur’anic law under a new edict issued by a leading cleric in the Islamic courts union that controls Mogadishu. The requirement for Muslims to observe the five-times daily ritual under penalty of death was announced late on Wednesday.

Radical Islamic militia fighters in central Somalia shot and killed two people at the screening of a banned World Cup soccer broadcast, an independent radio station reported. The Islamic fighters, who have banned such entertainment, were dispersing a crowd of teenagers watching the Germany-Italy match.

At least two people were killed when Islamic gunmen opened fire on scores of young demonstrators protesting a ban on World Cup viewing at a cinema in central Somalia, witnesses said on Wednesday. The pair were shot and killed late on Tuesday when soccer fans, barred by Islamists from watching the semifinal match between Germany and Italy, complained.

United Nations officials travelled to Mogadishu on Monday for their first talks with Somali Islamists, who wrested control of the Somali capital last month. The UN team flew into Mogadishu from Kenya under heavy security and inspected several areas of city, which has been under Islamist control since June 5 when they routed the warlords after four months of bloody clashes.

The hard-line Muslim leaders who control much of southern Somalia claimed nationwide authority, while the latest message attributed to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden describes the Horn of Africa nation as a battleground in his global war on the United States.

At least five people were killed on the edge of the Somali capital early on Tuesday when Islamic gunmen attacked positions held by fighters loyal to a warlord. In addition to the deaths, at least six people were wounded in the battles, the first clashes around the city since Islamists seized control of Mogadishu earlier this month from a United States-backed warlord alliance.

The new supreme leader of Somalia’s Islamic courts that seized control of Mogadishu this month from a United States-backed warlord alliance said on Monday that Sharia law will be imposed throughout the country. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a controversial hard-line cleric designated a global terrorist by the US, denied US charges against him.

Somalis marked their 46th anniversary of independence quietly on Monday in Mogadishu, fearing the Islamic militants who control their capital would frown on celebrations. In past years, public events were held in Mogadishu and other towns to mark independence day.

A Swedish journalist was shot and killed on Friday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, while attending a demonstration organised by Islamic courts, witnesses said. Unknown gunmen shot the journalist at a rally site in the southern part of the city where about 4 000 Islamists were demonstrating in support of the courts, they said.

For a Mogadishu port worker, an Islamic group’s takeover of most of southern Somalia means he can haul cargo without fear of rampaging militiamen. At the other end of the economic scale, a Coke executive is just as eager to grasp a chance at normalcy in a country that has known little but violence for more than a decade.

An increasingly powerful Islamic militia rolled through its newly captured territory and installed a religious court in one town as the remnants of a United States-backed alliance of warlords desperately tried to regroup. The Islamic Courts Union controls the Somali capital and surrounding areas after defeating the secular warlord alliance in weeks of battles that killed at least 330 people.

The lawless Somali capital fractured along clan lines on Tuesday as members of a United States-backed warlord alliance sought refuge with traditional elders and vowed to resist Islamist control. A day after Mogadishu’s 11 Islamic courts claimed victory over the warlords in four months of fierce fighting, surrender talks were at a stalemate and the city appeared deeply divided.

Islamic fundamentalists whose ideology is similar to the Taliban seized control of Somalia’s capital on Monday, unifying the city for the first time in more than a decade and posing a direct challenge to a fledging United Nations-backed government.

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi has sacked four ministers, also warlords, who were involved in deadly clashes with Islamic courts militia over control of the lawless capital and its northern outskirts. In the latest clashes on Sunday, Islamic gunmen seized control of the strategic town of Balad township, around 30km north of Mogadishu.