Mortar bombs hit a Mogadishu market today in a second day of fighting that has killed at least 42 people, witnesses said.
Islamist insurgents are battling the Somali government and their Ethiopian military backers in a nearly two-year conflict that some are calling Africa's Iraq.
Fighting worsened at the weekend, even as UN officials sought to broker a ceasefire between government and opposition representatives in neighbouring Djibouti.
Somali police and the hardline al Shabaab Islamists blamed each other for the attacks.
In the biggest incident, shells hit packed Bakara market, killing about 30 people, residents said.
Al Shabaab said government and Ethiopian troops had targeted the residential area considered a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents, after rebel attacks on the presidential palace.
As well as the presidential palace, the Somali rebels also attacked two bases of African Union (AU) peacekeepers, and shelled the city's main airport today where a commercial flight defied a ban by the al Shabaab group to land.
Residents also said at least a dozen people had died in fighting yesterday.
Reuters