Heavy fighting explodes in capital of Somalia

[David]

AP


MOGADISHU, Somalia – Hundreds of government soldiers attacked Islamic insurgents across the Somali capital amid heavy artillery shelling Friday, battling along streets strewn with bodies as they tried to regain lost ground.

The U.N.-backed government, which held just a few blocks of Mogadishu before the fighting erupted early in the day, claimed it had taken rebel-controlled areas, but the insurgents said they repelled the attacks.

One Somali reported a busload of fleeing civilians was hit by gunfire, and others told of seeing many casualties. At least 22 people were dead and more than 150 wounded across the city, residents, medical officials and an independent radio station said.

"We are running out of beds ... we cannot cope," said Ali Adde, deputy director of the Medina Hospital, where more than 100 casualties were brought.

Some of the patients were being treated outside in hastily erected tents after the hospital ran out of room, he said.

The government offensive followed a few days' lull after Islamic insurgents staged a major attack in Mogadishu. Despite successes, the insurgents failed to gain control of key installations like the airport and presidential palace, which are guarded by African Union peacekeepers.

The Islamic fighters also had been expanding their hold on territory in central Somalia taken from clan militias allied to the government.

But the militants halted when neighboring Ethiopia moved several columns of troops over the border to secure key towns. Ethiopia, which helped government troops drive Islamic militiamen out of the capital late in 2006, worries about the insurgents' links to rebel groups on its own soil.

Regional leaders issued a hurried statement Friday in support of the beleaguered U.N.-backed government, which took advantage of the calm in recent days to resupply and regroup its troops before launching Friday's assault.

Both sides fired mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and missiles mounted on trucks into residential areas. Gunmen with belts of ammunition wound around their skinny chests crouched behind shell-pocked buildings, ignoring bodies in the streets.

A man cradled a wounded child, blood streaming from its face onto his white shirt while two more hurriedly trundled a body down the road on a cart, a scarf draped over its head. Another man stared vacantly, his lower jaw torn away by shrapnel or a bullet.

"The gunfire is pounding our village like thunder. This is a nightmare," said Mohamed Haji Tohow from southern Mogadishu. "May God save us."

Among the dead was journalist Abdirisaq Warsame Mohamed of the independent radio station Shabelle Media Network. His editor said he was hit by a stray bullet on his way to work.

The U.N. said some 49,000 people had fled the capital, and the humanitarian situation was dire. Many families camped out under trees or by the side of roads, sheltered by nothing more than a few scraps of plastic, without access to food or water.

Mark Schroeder, an analyst at Stratfor, an international intelligence company, said he did not expect Somalia's fighting to end soon.

Two insurgent groups have cobbled together an alliance seeking to overthrow the weak government and its allied militias. But Schroeder said even if that occurred the nationalist aims of the leader of the Islamic Party and the jihadist ideology of the al-Shabab militia would likely lead to conflict between the nominal allies.

"The Islamists can be united as long as they have a common enemy," he said.

In addition, Ethiopia and the United States are keen to prevent Islamic forces from coming into power in Somalia, Schroeder said. They are particularly opposed to the al-Shabab militia, which has publicly stated its support for al-Qaida and received endorsement from Osama bin Laden in a video.

"The fight is far from over," Schroeder said.

He noted Somalia's new president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, has a personal rivalry with Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, an Islamist leader who arrived in Mogadishu a month ago after two years of exile in Eritrea.

Ahmed and Aweys, who come from the same clan, once fought alongside each other against the previous administration and its Ethiopian allies. But Ahmed signed a peace deal, clearing the way for him to become president, and Aweys now regards him as a traitor.

There is also a rivalry between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which is supporting Aweys. Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia after a long, bitter war, is eager to weaken its archenemy any way it can.

Somalis have not known peace for a generation, ever since warlords overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991. Clan militias turned on each other seeking revenge for brutality of his rule, and in the intervening years criminal militias and pirates have built business empires out of the chaos.