Fighting between Islamist al Shabaab rebels and Somali troops in the capital Mogadishu has killed at least 20 people and wounded 30 this weekend, a human rights group and medical officers said today.
Residents said al Shabaab insurgents have sought to advance towards the presidential palace for the past four days but government troops and African Union peacekeepers have been trying to repel them.
The fragile Western-backed transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed only controls a small pocket of Mogadishu, with the help of African Union troops, and faces near daily attacks from Islamist rebels.
Residents in the north of Mogadishu said government troops and rebels fought fiercely in Shibis neighbourhood and that both sides suffered several defeats in back and forth shelling.
An ambulance service coordinator, told Reuters at least 30 people had been wounded in the past two days of clashes. "Most of the people were wounded in and around Bakara market," he said.
A spokesman for the AU AMISOM force in Mogadishu said they would attack if al Shabaab, which Washington says is al Qaeda's proxy in the region, came too close.
President Ahmed is currently at an international UN-backed conference in Turkey at which UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said international support for the government was the only chance to stabilise the chaotic country.
The fighting has killed at least 21,000 people in the failed Horn of Africa nation since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
Reuters