Battles kill seven in Somali capital Mogadishu

Four Somali policemen and three civilians have been killed by the heaviest fighting for weeks

Four Somali policemen and three civilians have been killed by the heaviest fighting for weeks between government troops and suspected Islamist-led insurgents in the capital Mogadishu, witnesses said today.

Residents said battles broke out yesterday evening around the sprawling Bakara Market, which the authorities say is a hotbed of rebel activity. Locals cowered in their homes as both sides exchanged artillery rounds and bursts of machine-gun fire. "I saw four dead men in police uniforms lying in the street," said one witness, Abdi Hassan.

Another resident, Faiza Ahmed, said a government truck mounted with heavy weaponry burned nearby as masked gunmen armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades briefly manned a major junction abandoned by government forces. Witnesses said one stray mortar round killed an elderly man when it hit his home in an area next to the market. Dahir Mohamed Mohamud, deputy director of Mogadishu's Madina Hospital, said 11 people wounded in the fighting had been admitted and two of them had died in the emergency room.

AU peace mission struggling
Violence has worsened in recent weeks in Somalia's coastal capital, where the interim government and its Ethiopian military allies face an insurgency by the remnants of a hardline sharia courts group they chased out of the city just over a year ago. Hundreds of under-equipped African Union peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi have been unable to quell the bloodshed. Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the latest fighting. Early today, scores of Somali troops and police patrolled the Bakara area, searching pedestrians and vehicles for weapons.

"A huge number of government forces were engaged in search operations inside the market," said market trader Mohamed Osman. "I wanted to open my shop but I couldn't because I was afraid I'd be caught in the middle of gunfire like yesterday."

In separate violence in southern Somalia overnight, militiamen loyal to Mogadishu's ousted Islamic Courts group attacked Doble, a small town just across the border from Kenya. Ahmed Nur Dalab, chairman of the area's traditional elders council, said the heavily armed gunmen destroyed video halls and killed the owner of a movie and music rental shop. - Reuters