Hundreds have been killed in clashes between Somalia's Islamic militia and the country's secular government while the United Nations issued a call for peace during a lull in fighting.

Fighting broke out today between Somalia’s government troops and rival Islamic militia near where an EU envoy was meeting with senior leaders to press for peace talks.

Somalia’s most powerful politician today offered the country’s Islamic movement a role in government, but said it must pull back its militia to avert a looming war.

Heavy fighting erupted in northern Somalia today as Islamic forces clashed with militia backed by Ethiopian troops, an Islamic official said.

Suicide bombers struck in Afghanistan’s two main cities today, killing three civilians and wounding six, while seven suspected militants died in fighting with coalition and Nato forces in outlying provinces.

Protesters in a key Somali port held a second day of demonstrations against a local administration set up by the Islamic militia that has seized control of much of the country’s south.

Fears of regional conflict has soared with the loss of a strategic port to Somalia’s radical Islamic militia, which faced angry demonstrations that erupted into deadly violence, and for the first time acknowledged getting help from foreign Muslims.

A member of Somalia’s virtually powerless government was assassinated today as he walked out of a mosque, enraging hundreds of Somalis who rioted in the streets screaming, “We want a government that can restore law and order!”

Unknown gunmen have killed 682 civilians, including a foreign journalist, in executions over the past year in Somalia, a local human rights group said in a report today.

Hundreds of Ethiopian troops moved into a second Somali town yesterday to protect the country’s weak, UN-backed government, as talks aimed at easing tensions fell apart when the government did not turn up and Islamist militia delegates walked out.

Somalia’s nearly powerless interim government today said it wanted to postpone this weekend’s peace talks with an increasingly radical Islamic militia that has seized control of nearly all of southern Somalia.

HUNDREDS of fighters who were battling Somalia’s Islamic militia in the capital surrendered yesterday morning after a surge of violence that killed more than 70 people and wounded 150 since Sunday.

SOMALIA’S Islamic militia battled a pocket of resistance in the capital yesterday, pounding Mogadishu with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades a day after 20 people were killed in bloody fighting.

The Islamic militia that has seized control of Somalia’s capital said today the killing of a Swedish journalist was planned by a foreign enemy that wants to shatter weeks of relative peace in the Horn of Africa nation.

Residents of Mogadishu attended Friday prayers after a week of relative calm under the control of an Islamic militia, but many wondered if the peace can last in the hands of radicals accused of links to al-Qaida.

ISLAMIC militia that seized Somalia’s capital this week began talks with the country’s largely powerless UN-backed government yesterday, the latest sign of their growing influence there.

An Islamic militia with alleged al-Qaida links has seized Somalia’s capital Mogadishu after weeks of bloody fighting with US-backed secular warlords, raising fears that the nation could fall under the sway of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organisation.

An Islamic militia today said it had seized Somalia’s capital Mogadishu after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting in 15 years of anarchy in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

Rival militia battled with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and assault rifles for control of part of the Somali capital Mogadishu for a third straight day. Fighting has killed at least 75 people and wounded more than 100, according to medical workers.

ON the second anniversary of its intervention in Afghanistan, the United States said there were signs Taliban guerrillas were planning more spectacular attacks and urged Pakistan to do more to curb Islamic militants.

The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), castigated by American and British warmongers as the mouthpiece of the Taliban, has reported that the Islamic militia has agreed to surrender its last urban stronghold to the country’s new leader.

They may not be quite ready to throw their burqas aside, but many women in Kabul heaved a sigh of relief today at the appointment of two women to the interim government for their war-ruined nation.

Anti-Taliban forces have kept Kunduz tightly surrounded after the heaviest day of fighting in more than a week.

American warplanes are striking Taliban positions outside the northern city of Kunduz, the Islamic militia's sole remaining stronghold in the north of Afghanistan.

For the first time in weeks, relieved residents of Kabul awoke today after a night free of the nearby crash of US bombs.

American warplanes have been dropping bombs on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Opposition forces today claimed the capture of a district outside the strategic northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, while US warplanes resumed their bombing raids on Taliban frontline positions.

The US has launched its first daylight raid on Afghanistan.

In an attack coordinated with US/British air strikes, the Afghan opposition tonight launched an attack on Taliban forces controlling the mountains surrounding the Bagram air force base north of Kabul.

The United Arab Emirates has cut its ties with the Taliban, giving a diplomatic boost to the US.

Calling Ahmed Shah Massood their battlefield enemy, the hard-line Islamic Taliban denied they were behind a suicide bombing that has critically injured the opposition leader.