By Mohamed Ali Bile
Fighters for a coalition of warlords who say they have joined forces to fight terrorism used anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks, artillery and machine guns to assault Islamist militias in a bitter turf war.
Militia leaders and hospital officials said at least 20 had been killed and 18 injured, but residents feared the toll would be much higher.
The fighting, which threatens Somalia’s weak transitional government as it tries to impose its authority on the anarchic nation, is also being seen by many as a battle between Islam and the United States’ “war on terrorism”.
The battle, which erupted on Wednesday and has killed at least 70 people so far, had eased overnight. But fighting broke out in the Daynile, Keysaney and Galgalato districts on Saturday, sending terrified residents fleeing, witnesses said.
“We are hiding for our lives,” said Abdirahman Hussein, a resident who said he and others in the area spent a sleepless night as mortars and artillery shells pounded their neighbourhood.
The warlords — among them four ministers in Somalia’s weak transitional government — said they were trying to retake areas seized from them on Friday.
“It is another fight we must have, to get back our territory at Kilometre 4,” warlord militia leader Abdullahi Atosh told Reuters as he re-organised his militia in the Bulo Hubey area of Mogadishu, where his forces retreated on Friday.
Kilometre 4 is a critical junction and had been a warlord stronghold until the Islamist militias routed them and seized the Sahafi hotel owned by a warlord.
The Islamists, backed by influential sharia courts, have taken greater control of the city every time they have clashed with the warlord coalition since its formation in February.
This battle and three earlier fights have killed at least 320 people, mostly civilians, and wounded hundreds in what Mogadishu residents say is the worst fighting in the city in a decade.
Source: Reuters, May 27, 2006
