Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
8 November 2008
Mogadishu — At least five people have been killed in overnight clashes between Somali troops and Islamist rebels, witnesses said.
At least three civilians were killed earlier as heavily-armed insurgents attacked the transitional government troop's' bases in Mogadishu late friday, in the latest outbreak of fighting that has left the capital in ruins after peace pact signed by the government and opposition ARS group.
"Two civilians, died in Hamarjajab area in Wardhigley district. The victims were trying to take cover from the falling shells," said resident Yasin sheikh Mohamed.
Abdi Yusuf, whose sister was among the fatalities in the main Bakara market where mortars shells, gave a harrowing account of the fighting that saw the troops with Ethiopians use tanks and BM guns to shell residential areas.
"It was horrible moment, we escaped from our house to hide in a concrete building nearby but unfortunately that did not save her. She was torn to pieces with two other civilians," he said.
The latest violence comes as the government and the opposition groups wanted to push for peace agreement signed in Djibouti.
Ethiopian troops intervened to prop up the feeble Somali government at the end of 2006 and eventually drove the Islamists from much of the country's southern and central regions, where they had established Sharia law.
Since then, the Islamists have killed numerous government officials and vowed to fight until the Ethiopians, whom they regard as occupiers, withdraw.
Addis Ababa has pledged to pull out its forces after the United Nations deploys an international force to bolster the under-equipped African troops from Burundi and Uganda.
Somalia plunged into civil war after the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre, setting off a deadly power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore a functional government.
The AU has about 3,000 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, short of some 8,000 troops it pledged.
The conflict and recurrent drought has currently left at least 3.2 million -- out the country's 10 million population -- in need of humanitarian support.
But widespread insecurity and the kidnapping of aid workers has choked humanitarian operations, deepening misery in the country.
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