Battles continue in Somali capital

Somali troops are battling rebels for a second day in the capital Mogadishu.

Yesterday, Islamic insurgents dragged soldiers’ bodies through the streets of Mogadishu during fighting that killed at least 16 people and wounded dozens.

Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine-guns and government troops responded with artillery and machine-gun fire in the early morning battles today in northern and southern parts of Mogadishu, witnesses said.

Hundreds of government troops were deployed to reinforce troops who fought insurgents, said Fathi Mohamed Aden, a clan elder who saw the fighting take place in his northern Mogadishu neighbourhood.

Both sides then engaged in a fierce gun battle, he said.

The fighting follows yesterday’s battles during which insurgents dragged the bodies of six soldiers – four Somalis and two of their Ethiopian allies - through the streets of Mogadishu and set the bodies on fire, drawing crowds who threw rocks and kicked the remains.

Yesterday marked some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since a radical militia known as the Council of Islamic Courts was driven from the capital in December after six months in power. But the group has promised to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and mortar attacks pound the capital nearly every day.

The leader of the Council of Islamic Courts, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, told the BBC’s Somali service that the insurgents and residents of Mogadishu were justified in fighting the Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies, but denied he was involved in it.