8 die in Mogadishu clashes
2009-08-09 20:11
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Mogadishu - At least eight people died on Saturday and 17 were injured in the Somali capital after Islamist rebels fired mortars at the airport and presidential palace, prompting a riposte from African peacekeepers.
The attack occurred as President Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed arrived from the Kenyan capital Nairobi after a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, police said.
Most of the fatalities occurred in the capital's teeming Bakara market.
"The rebels fired mortars at the airport and the presidential palace when the president arrived and the government forces responded," senior police official Mohamed Ali told AFP.
"Eight civilians were killed in the market and 17 others taken to hospital," added Ali Muse, head of Mogadishu's ambulance service.
Clinton promised to double arms flow to war-battered Somalia and further support for African peacekeepers guarding the area around the presidential palace in Mogadishu.
She said the United States has provided nearly 150 million dollars to the African Mission in Somalia in the past two years and planned additional funds in the coming months.
Somalia has been mired in unrest since 1991 and is currently in the grip of a fierce insurgency, with hardline Islamist militias waging a campaign to topple the African Union-backed government.
- SAPA