Death toll exceeds 120 as rival Somali factions battle for control

SOMALIA: The death toll in Somalia's worst fighting for a decade rose to more than 120 yesterday as rival militias battled for…

SOMALIA: The death toll in Somalia's worst fighting for a decade rose to more than 120 yesterday as rival militias battled for control of the capital with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns.

Hundreds of people were wounded as shells crashed into their homes, smashing walls and windows, in the overcrowded northern shanty town of SiiSii. Many more fled their houses to escape the fighting in the failed Horn of Africa state.

Hospitals said at least 27 people were killed as gunmen, manning checkpoints and racing through Mogadishu's streets in pickup trucks mounted with heavy guns, fought on through the night, a practice elders say is forbidden by Somali custom.

That brought the toll in five days of fighting to at least 121. Most of the dead are civilians and the latest fatalities included a pregnant woman and three children whose house was hit by a mortar.

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In another incident, a witness said he saw mortars hit a house twice, killing five members of the same family, including two children.

The fierce fighting is the third round of Mogadishu street battles this year between gunmen allied to Islamic courts and militia from a self-styled anti-terrorist alliance of powerful warlords, widely believed to be funded by Washington.

"Siisii has been turned into a battleground. So many houses have been shelled and hundreds of residents are fleeing. It's a catastrophe," said Siyad Mohamed, a militia leader linked to the Islamic side. "The death toll will definitely rise."

Analysts view the fighting as a proxy battle between Islamic militants and Washington, which has long viewed Somalia as a terrorist haven. Some diplomats and security officials say there are a handful of al-Qaeda-linked militants working around Mogadishu, but Somalis do not generally support extreme Islamic views. Many say they hate the warlords after 15 years of being robbed and terrorised by their fighters.

The Islamic courts have used sharia law to provide a semblance of order in the city of one million, where a power vacuum has fuelled endemic violence for the last 15 years.

Mr Mohamed said the warlords had thrown 100 new gunmen into the battle overnight. A spokesman for the warlords' alliance denied this but confirmed fighting had continued through the night.

President Abdullahi Yusuf's fractious fledgling government has lacked the authority or resources to make a difference to the lives of ordinary Somalis since it was formed in 2004.

Influential Somali Islamist Sheikh Dahir Aweys, whose name appears on a US list of most wanted terrorists, has accused Washington of backing the warlords to avenge the killing of American soldiers in Mogadishu in the 1990s during a UN peacekeeping mission that ended in humiliation.