Garowe Online (Garowe)
13 October 2008
At least 14 people including many civilians were killed Monday in parts of southern Somalia, Radio Garowe reported.
At least 8 people died in the capital Mogadishu after suspected insurgents attacked an African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) military base, sparking a deadly gunfight.
AMISOM spokesman Bahoku Barigye confirmed to reporters that two peacekeepers were wounded when an "explosive device" targeted their vehicle.
An AU military plane landed at Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport, with AU peacekeepers saying the plane delivered fresh soldiers from Burundi to reinforce AMISOM forces in Somalia.
Contacts at Medina Hospital told Radio Garowe that at least 23 wounded civilians were admitted for treatment today, after insurgents and AU peacekeepers exchanged artillery.
Al Shabaab, an Islamist insurgent group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Separately, Mogadishu's Wadajir District Commissioner Ahmed Hassan Addow said local police killed two insurgents in a short skirmish after they launched mortars towards the airport, where the AU plane landed and a commercial airliner carrying civilian passengers flew out safely.
In Bay region, where the government's temporary capital Baidoa is located, heavy fighting erupted after insurgents ambushed an Ethiopian army convoy.
At least six people - four insurgents and two Ethiopian soldiers - were killed in the subsequent violence, according to witnesses in Bardale, a town southwest of Baidoa.
"The fighting was fierce...Ethiopian troops who came from Bakool region and were heading to Baidoa came under attack," said a witness who did not wish to be named.
He said an Ethiopian army transport truck was burned during the battle. Ethiopian soldiers eventually outgunned the insurgents and reached Baidoa.
Somali rebels have led a bloody anti-government insurgency since January 2007, when Mogadishu's Islamist rulers were dislodged from power by the Ethiopian army.
Thousands of civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands more displaced by the conflict since, making it Africa's worst humanitarian crisis.
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