re: peaceful area stability rules Fighting flares in Mogadishu,...

re: peaceful area stability rules Fighting flares in Mogadishu, 20 die
Sunday May 28 07:44 AEST
Bullets and artillery shells pounded Mogadishu for a fourth day, killing at least 20 people, as rival militias intensified their battle for control of the Somali capital.
Fighters for a coalition of warlords who say they have joined forces to fight terrorism used anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks, artillery and machine guns to assault Islamist militias in a bitter turf war.
Militia leaders and hospital officials said at least 20 people had been killed and 18 injured, but residents feared the toll could be much higher.
The fighting, which threatens Somalia's weak transitional government as it tries to impose authority on the anarchic nation, is also being seen by many as a battle between Islam and the United States' war on terrorism. The battle that erupted on Wednesday has killed at least 70 people. It eased overnight but fighting broke out in the Daynile, Keysaney and Galgalato districts, sending terrified residents fleeing, witnesses said.
"We are hiding for our lives," said Abdirahman Hussein, a resident who said he and others in the area spent a sleepless night as mortars and artillery shells pounded their neighbourhood.
The warlords - among them four ministers in Somalia's weak transitional government - said they were trying to retake areas seized from them the day before.
"It is another fight we must have, to get back our territory at Kilometre 4," warlord militia leader Abdullahi Atosh told Reuters as he re-organised his militia in the Bulo Hubey area of Mogadishu, where his forces had retreated.
Kilometre 4 is a critical junction and had been a warlord stronghold until the Islamist militias routed them and seized the Sahafi hotel owned by a warlord.
The latest battle and three earlier fights have killed at least 320 people, mostly civilians, and wounded hundreds in what Mogadishu residents say is the worst fighting in the city in a decade.
The Islamists, backed by influential sharia courts, have taken greater control of the city every time they have clashed with the warlord coalition since its formation in February, in fights laced with commercial and political motives.
The perception that the US Central Intelligence Agency is funding the warlords has inflamed the fighting.
The London-based newsletter Africa Confidential reported that the CIA had flown thousands of dollars into the city and brought a list of al-Qaeda operatives it believed to be there. Diplomats say a handful are in Mogadishu.
There has been no US response to the report. In recent weeks Washington has not responded directly to the rumours it is funding the warlords except to say it would work with those willing to help its counter-terrorism fight.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi, in a letter made public, warned the four warlord ministers they had a week to arrive in Baidoa and begin their jobs.
The government, the 14th attempt at creating central authority since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's 1991 ouster, has made its temporary home in that south-central city because it cannot pacify Mogadishu.
Gedi wrote that legal measures would be taken against warlords if they disobeyed, but did not specify what that might be nor how it could be enforced. The warlords ignored an earlier order and have said they are too busy fighting to go to Baidoa.

©AAP 2006