Mogadishu

Fighting between Islamic militia and a United States-backed warlord alliance subsided in the lawless Somali capital on Thursday, but tension remained high as the factions regrouped after deadly clashes. Stung by the loss on Wednesday of a key position in north-east Mogadishu, the alliance reinforced a base north of the city.

Islamic militias and secular warlords resumed fighting for control of the Somali capital on Wednesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding at least 11 others after a five-day lull, witnesses and medical workers said. The fundamentalist Islamic militia expanded their control of parts of Mogadishu in the battle that began shortly after morning prayers.

Heavily armed Somali fighters have occupied Mogadishu’s main hospital, forcing a near shutdown in key services to patients wounded in factional fighting that has rocked the city, witnesses said on Tuesday. Dozens of gunmen from a United States-backed warlord alliance took over the Keysaney Hospital in northern Mogadishu.

Members of militias fighting for control of the Somali capital could face war-crimes charges for attempting to prevent the wounded and civilians from receiving assistance during the conflict, a United Nations official warned on Monday. The battle between fundamentalist Islamic militias and rival secular combatants has forced about 1 500 to seek treatment.

Mogadishu residents cautiously returned to their homes on Monday, taking advantage of a lull in fierce factional fighting to pick through rubble-strewn neighbourhoods in the capital. At 62 people have been killed and hundreds wounded, most of them civilians, in the latest round of fighting that began on Wednesday.

Fresh fighting erupted in Mogadishu on Saturday after a brief lull, killing at least five people and injuring 11 others in intermittent battles that have blighted the lawless capital since February, witnesses said. Residents reported heavy gunfire in the southern Daynile district, where at least three people were killed and six others injured in the morning violence.

Hundreds of Somalis packed mattresses and food into minivans and trucks, preparing to flee their capital a day after it suffered some of the fiercest battles in 14 days. Doctors reached by telephone in the city’s hospitals and clinics raised the death toll from Thursday’s fighting to 60, with more than 150 wounded.

Fighters loyal to an Islamic militia and their secular rivals manoeuvred heavily armed trucks around city streets and reinforced their positions in Somalia’s capital early on Friday, following a battle that residents said was the most widespread fighting in 14 years.

Heavily armed gunmen fought pitched battles in the streets of the lawless Somali capital on Thursday, rocking the city with a fresh surge in the deadliest violence it has seen in years. Islamic militia and fighters loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance pounded Mogadishu with heavy fire, sending the death toll soaring.

At least seven people were killed and 14 wounded on Thursday as clashes between radical Islamic forces and a United States-backed warlord alliance flared in the lawless Somalia capital, residents said. The two sides pounded each other with heavy machine guns, rockets, artillery and mortar fire in four residential districts in southern and northern Mogadishu.

Rival militiamen renewed fighting on Wednesday on the northern edge of Somalia’s lawless capital, witnesses and medical sources said. More than 140 people — mostly non-combatants caught in the crossfire — were killed in eight days of fighting in Mogadishu earlier this month between Islamic militias and a rival alliance of secular warlords.

Islamist gunmen overran a compound held by a United States-backed warlord alliance outside the lawless Somali capital on Wednesday, killing seven fighters and decapitating several, witnesses said. Islamic militia targeted the base north of the city in the latest flare-up in fighting since the two sides began observing an informal truce on Sunday.

At least one person was killed and another wounded on Tuesday when suspected Islamic gunmen attacked a compound held by a United States-backed warlord alliance outside the lawless Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses said. ”It was difficult to know the identity of the attacker or attackers,” a commander in the compound told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.

Islamic militia and gunmen loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance fought pitched battles in the streets of the lawless Somali capital on Thursday as the death toll from five days of clashes soared. Machine gun, rocket and mortar fire rained down on bullet-scarred neighbourhoods in northern and central Somalia, indiscriminately killing and wounding civilians.

Fresh factional fighting rocked the lawless Somali capital on Wednesday as a tentative truce failed to hold and Islamic militia and gunmen loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance battled for a fourth day. Heavy machine gun, artillery and rocket fire resounded through streets of bullet-scarred Mogadishu after the collapse of the truce.

Fierce fighting in the Somali capital subsided on Wednesday after dozens were killed in 72 hours of pitched battles between Islamic militiamen and gunmen loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance. At least 40 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded in clashes that began on Sunday.

Islamic militiamen and secular fighters battled on Wednesday for control of Somalia’s capital despite promises of a ceasefire, as the death toll rose to at least 90, with nearly 200 others wounded. The sounds of heavy weapons echoed through the city, but the fighting was not as intense as it had been in the previous three days.

Rival militias battled using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, artillery and assault rifles for control of a part of the Somali capital for a third straight day on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 27 others overnight. The clashes marked an escalation among combatants who usually do not fight after dusk.

Residents began fleeing Somalia’s capital early on Monday after a night of fighting between a secular militia and gunmen loyal to Mogadishu’s Islamic courts reportedly left 18 people dead and 21 wounded. Witnesses said fighting began when gunmen working for a militia commander fired on a gun truck carrying bodyguards of Islamic Court Union chairperson Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

Rival militiamen battled for control of a district in the lawless Somali capital on Sunday and at least seven people were killed, medical workers said. Fighting began after militias loyal to an alliance of warlords-turned-Cabinet ministers and businessmen deployed in a house in the Hamarweyne district of central Mogadishu.

Tension soared in the capital of lawless Somalia on Friday as Mogadishu’s powerful Islamic courts declared jihad, or holy war, on a militia alliance widely believed to be backed by the United States. Thousands of terrified Mogadishu residents have fled their homes to avoid the expected violence.

At least three people were killed and nine wounded in a gun battle over United Nations food aid in drought-stricken central Somalia early on Monday, police and relief workers said. The incident, which underscores the difficulties faced by aid agencies working in the lawless nation, occurred shortly after midnight near the town of Baidoa, they said.

Somali pirates are demanding  000 for the release of a South Korean fishing vessel seized with a crew of 25 Asians this week off the coast of the lawless nation, elders said on Friday. Village elders — the traditional power base of rural Somalia — in the area near where the ship is being held said the gunmen were seeking payment of a ”fine” for illegal fishing and not a ransom.

Somali pirates seized an oil tanker soon after it had offloaded its cargo of fuel at a southern Somalia port, an official and witness said on Friday. The pirates so far have made no demands since hijacking the United Arab Emirates-registered MT Lombigo on Tuesday near Adale, about 150km north of the capital, Mogadishu.

The United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative for Somalia appealed for a ceasefire on Friday as thousands continue to flee the capital Mogadishu as heavy fighting between rival militias entered its third day, killing about 60 people. ”I urge all sides to consider the loss of life, injuries and other suffering caused to hundreds of families this week.”

Two days of fierce clashes in Mogadishu between an Islamic militia and forces that have challenged clerics’ growing power have killed at least 60 people, according to medical workers. At least 20 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, while the toll from Wednesday was 40, according to figures gathered from hospitals in Mogadishu.

A group of powerful warlords controlling the Somali capital has formed a new political party, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, whose main goal is to oppose extremism associated with hard-line Islamic courts in the lawless Horn of Africa nation, officials with ties to the party said on Tuesday.

At least four people were killed and dozens wounded on Monday as rival factions renewed fierce fighting in the southern part of the Somali capital, bringing the death toll since clashes began at the weekend to 18. The clashes, which erupted on Saturday between freelance gunmen who attempted to set up a checkpoint and Islamic court security personnel, resumed in 21 October Road.

At least one person was killed and seven others wounded in the Puntland region of Somalia on Monday as security forces clashed with hundreds of Muslims protesting the publication in Europe of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, witnesses and police said.

Tens of thousands of desperate Somalis have converged on Mogadishu over the past two months, abandoning their homes in the lawless nation’s drought-stricken south and centre to beg for food in the capital as famine looms across East Africa. Somalia has become the poster child for the Horn of Africa drought disaster, officials say.

Warlords in control of the lawless Somali capital threatened on Friday to shoot down planes that obey a new directive from the war-shattered nation’s transitional government not to use airports they run. A Mogadishu warlord said the bar on flights into the airstrips was an attempt by the president to undermine his foes.