Renewed Somali fighting kills 6

2006-05-24 14:01

Mogadishu - Rival militiamen renewed fighting on Wednesday on the northern edge of Somalia's lawless capital, said witnesses and medical sources.

More than 140 people - most noncombatants caught in the crossfire - were killed in eight days of fighting in Mogadishu earlier this month between Islamic militias and a rival alliance of secular warlords.

The rivals signed a ceasefire on May 14, but over the weekend appeared to be preparing for another round of violence.

The latest fighting broke out at midnight on Wednesday and intensified midmorning. A resident Hassan Yare said: "I saw two dead bodies lying in the street through my window."

Six Islamic militiamen killed

Doctors at Madina and Keysaney Hospitals confirmed that three people were killed in the battle.

Abdi Dalab, a militia commander of the rival Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, said: "We have lost one of our men in the battle, and I am sure six of their (Islamic militia) men were killed."

He accused the Islamic militias of violating the ceasefire. Leaders of the Islamic militias or the Islamic Courts Union that controlled them were not immediately available for comment.

It was not possible to independently confirm Dalab's claims.

Hundreds of residents, who were optimistic that the tension would ease, after efforts by traditional elders to broker a fragile cease fire, had again began to flee from their homes in northern Mogadishu fearing that fighting could escalate.

Islamic militiamen 'linked to al-Qaeda'

Somalia had been embroiled in recent weeks by some of the worst fighting in more than a decade.

The fundamentalists portrayed themselves as capable of bringing order to the country, which had been without a real government since largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The Islamic militia's growth in popularity and strength, and the possibility that they had outside support, was reminiscent of the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

The secular alliance, which included members of a United Nations-backed interim government, but acted independently of it, accused the Islamic militiamen of having ties to al-Qaeda.

The Islamic group accused the secularists of being puppets of the US.

- AP