By Guled Mohamed
MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Islamist militia attacked fighters loyal to defeated Somali warlords in Mogadishu on Sunday in a heavy battle that killed at least 15 people and wounded scores including refugees, witnesses said.
Mogadishu’s war-weary residents ran for cover as rival militia fought each other in streets with machine-guns and mortars near the volatile Kilometre Four district of Mogadishu which had been a pocket of warlord resistance to the Islamists.
“I am fighting for Islam and I don’t fear dying,” Islamist fighter Ahmed Hashi, who sustained head injuries, told Reuters, near the scene against a cacophony of bullets and missiles.
Determined to take complete control of the coastal Somali capital, the Islamists ambushed fighters loyal to Hussein Aideed, an interior minister in the interim government, and another warlord Abdi Awale Qaybdiid, in enclaves they had kept.
“This is part of the anti-terror war,” the Islamists’ leader, hardline cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, told Reuters from his base in central Somalia.
“He (Qaybdiid) is a remnant of the warlords. We have no option but to finish off this remaining war.”
Both warlords confirmed they were ambushed early in the morning by Islamist fighters. “They took over one of our bases in the Hosh area of western Mogadishu, which was in our hands for the last 15 years,” Aideed told Reuters from the provincial town of Baidoa, seat of the government.
Also briefly reached by telephone in Mogadishu as shots sounded around him, Qaybdiid told Reuters: “Fighting is going on since this morning…We will continue defending ourselves.”
MISSILE HITS REFUGEES
Staff at one of Mogadishu’s main hospitals said victims of were pouring in on the backs of pickup vehicles in scenes reminiscent of the battles earlier this year when the Islamists wrested control of the city from the warlords.
“Every five minutes, vehicles carrying wounded are coming in. We have 39 injured people so far. Two of those have succumbed,” said hospital administrator Ali Moallim. Militia sources and eye-witnesses confirmed another 13 deaths.
“The death toll will definitely rise,” Moallim added.
One anti-aircraft missile hit a refugee camp at Kilometre Four, wounding a pregnant woman and her three-year-old daughter.
“The pregnant lady sustained stomach wounds, the girl had wounds on her limbs, blood everywhere. It was really awful,” said a neighbour, Ali Hubale.
Residents wheeled them to hospital in a makeshift cart.
After its June 5 capture of Mogadishu, the Islamists went on to take other towns across a large swathe of south Somalia.
That has challenged the aspirations of the Western-backed interim government, which was formed in Kenya in 2004 and is based in Baidoa because it is too weak to go to Mogadishu.
Diplomats fear confrontation between the two sides and a military intervention by anti-Islamist Ethiopia.
Talks between the government and Islamists to avert that are scheduled to take place in Sudan on July 15.
Most of the warlords who ran Mogadishu since the 1991 ouster of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre fled or surrendered after their June 5 defeat. But pockets of militia loyal to Qaybdiid and others tried to hang on to some enclaves.
Sunday’s battle smashed a relative lull being enjoyed by Somalis, who have been without central rule for 15 years.
— Additional reporting by Mohamed Ali Bile in Mogadishu, Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi
Source: Reuters, July 9, 2006
