SOMALIA: Heavy fighting rocks central Mogadishu as government forces attack Islamist rebel positions

Record ID: 859879

  • Title: SOMALIA: Heavy fighting rocks central Mogadishu as government forces attack Islamist rebel positions
  • Date: 23rd May 2009
  • Summary: LOCAL PEOPLE LOOKING ON
  • Embargoed: 7th June 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Somalia
  • City:
  • Country: Somalia
  • Topics:
  • Reuters ID: LVA2M4XU5CW57TSG82CBY089FOT8
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  • Story Text: Somalia's government unleashed a series of pre-dawn assaults on Friday (May 22) in what witnesses said appeared to be a concerted effort by pro-government forces to seize back control of strategic sites in Mogadishu held by hardline Islamist rebels.
    Residents cowered in their homes as both sides swapped heavy weapons fire.
    Television images showed bodies of what people said were government soldiers killed in the fierce fighting.
    Witnesses said four insurgents from the hardline Islamist al Shabaab group died and a journalist from local independent Shabelle Radio was also killed.
    Residents said they were surprised to see men in government uniforms fighting in Bakara market area where they have recaptured four police stations between the market and the palace, and were said to be advancing.
    Sources at two Mogadishu hospitals said they received 85 wounded civilians on Friday, and that four of them later died.
    Residents in the city's Hodon district said the bodies of six dead insurgents were lying at a police station there.
    The heaviest fighting for months has killed scores of civilians and uprooted tens of thousands.
    The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says 46,000 people have fled clashes in Mogadishu in the past two weeks.
    The government says there is little hope of negotiating with the al Shabaab gunmen trying to topple it.
    The administration says the rebels have no political agenda and have hundreds of foreign extremists in their ranks.
    Neighbouring states and Western security forces fear Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for militants linked to al Qaeda.
    Islamist rebels, including Shabaab, which Washington accused of having close ties to al Qaeda, control much of the south and centre of Somalia.
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