Nairobi — Many Mogadishu residents are torn between supporting the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the insurgency associated with the ousted Union of Islamic Courts.

Take Fatima Ali Mahi, who is affectionately known as Famaay, for example.

A mother of six, Famaay is not as concerned about the fighting going on in the Somalia capital as the outside world may believe. She lives an almost normal life despite the carnage and destruction around her.

But that is only possible because she lives far from the northwest, where the fighting is concentrated.

Famaay's daily routine starts with a short trip to a nearby Via Liberia, a shopping centre where business has boomed since many other commercial centres in the city were plunged into mayhem. She buys her daily groceries and returns home in relative safety.

People fleeing from the war-affected areas such as Heliwa, Gubta, Yakshid and Hamarjadid wonder how life has returned to near normalcy in Waberi, Hamar Ja-jab, Hamar-weyn, Shangani, Abdulaziz, Shibs, Karaan, Madina, Dharkinley and parts of Wardhigley, Hodon and Howl-wadaag districts. The war escapees are surprised to find local residents relaxing at their homes, sipping gaxwa xaraar (light coffee).

Children in the peaceful districts attend religious schools, while playing football is a favourite pastime.

People in such areas can also afford to ignore the occasional shelling coming from far off district of the city.

Most families in the calmer areas have received relatives or friends fleeing from the war-ravaged zones.

However, in the northwest of the city, the insurgents - locally known as muqawama - are fighting heavily armed Ethiopian troops who support the TFG.

Ali Kamin, Towfiq and Fagax crossroads, which form a three-kilometre strip along the Soddonka Avenue has experienced the most intense fighting so far.

The battles are concentrated in the northern section of the road leading to the strategic junction of Ex-Control Balad. "The TFG wants to extend its rule to Balad in order to control the entry and exit routes of the city," said a military expert in the city.

Other city neighbourhoods suffer losses in terms of lives and destruction of property, but not as badly as the northwestern district where people find it difficult to collect the bodies of their fallen kin, let alone burying them. The muqawama, often fighting from densely populated neighbourhoods, have been firing shells into government positions and Ethiopian troops. Civilians generally resent what the militias are doing, but can do nothing to deter them. Non-combatant civilians cannot chase the insurgents away from their midst despite the brutal consequences by government troops as "doing so is tantamount to signing your death sentence," said an escapee.

At the same time, "every time shells are fired from innocent neighborhoods towards pro-TFG positions, the response is systematic. The Ethiopians respond with disproportionate shelling, that makes the insurgents' arsenal appear prehistoric."

"We are trapped between the devil and deep blue sea; the insurgents will not stop attacking and the Ethiopians can not refrain from responding with heavier firepower, leaving us to take the consequences," said a resident of Gubta location who did not want to be named.

The muqawama are battle-hardened youths who are opposed to the TFG.

Residents of the city are polarised. The anti-government lot would like to see the TFG removed while its sympathisers appreciate the Ethiopian troops' campaign because they believe that through the hapless government, Somalia has the only real opportunity to have stability.

The opponents say the TFG is made up of warlords, who are using "traditional enemy" forces from Ethiopia to consolidate their hold; that it is unpopular and that President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed comes from the distant Puntland Authority in Northeastern Somalia."

A resident, Ali Nur Iyow, said, "Uttering a remotely suspicious word about the insurgents is like calling your own death as nervous anti-government youths descend on and devour you much like the desert locust on green plants."

Whatever the case, Famaay and her six children live in a district where people have faith in the TFG. Her family is surviving relatively well because her carpenter husband is frequently hired and paid to fix structures for the escapees.

About half-a-million city residents are said to have fled to the outskirts of Mogadishu and beyond.

But as Omar Alihashi - publisher on Hiiraan Online, a mainly Somali news website - says, "Why oppose the TFG when there is no alternative?"