Garowe Online (Garowe)
16 July 2008
Mogadishu — At least 13 people were killed during Tuesday clashes in the Somali capital Mogadishu and a regional town of Berdale, Radio Garowe reported today.
In Mogadishu, Islamist insurgents attacked a police station and engaged officers in a fierce battle that killed at least 6 people and wounded 7 others, according to witnesses.
A Medina Hospital official said that one police officer and two insurgents are among the wounded people being treated at the hospital.
Four of the victims died when a shell hit their home, neighbors reported.
A Mogadishu police spokesman told reporters that they killed 3 insurgents and repulsed the attack, while Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Isse Addow claimed that the insurgents briefly seized control of the police station.
There were no independent reports to verify either claim.
In a separate battle, insurgents ambushed a joint Somali-Ethiopian force that was traveling by foot in Berdale town, in Bay region where the country's parliament sits.
The bodies of at least 7 people - all of them fighters - were discovered on Wednesday by Berdale residents and town elders.
According to reliable reports, 9 others were wounded during the 20-minute battle.
Islamist spokesmen claimed on local radio to have killed "many soldiers" and "burned vehicles."
But one witness told Radio Garowe that "hundreds of Somali and Ethiopian troops arrived afterwards, flying the Somali flag."
He stated that he "did not see any burning trucks," but admitted seeing wounded soldiers being transported out of Berdale.
Somalia has been wracked by an Islamist-led insurgency in January 2007, as rebels continue to wage a guerrilla war aimed at forcing Ethiopian troops to withdraw from the country.
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