Mogadishu residents carried wounded Somalis on wheelbarrows as bullets flew over the battered capital on Thursday in a new flare-up of violence between rival militias that killed up to 50 people.
Firing mortars, grenades and anti-aircraft guns, militia linked to Islamic courts squared off with gunmen for a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of warlords, in a resumption of the worst violence in Mogadishu for a decade.
"I am sure 50 people have died, the wounded are countless because mortars and missiles were hitting everywhere," said Ali Nur, alliance militia member who was wounded in the fighting, told Reuters by telephone as he left the hospital.
Terrorized city
Scores fled the fighting, which erupted on Wednesday and intensified Thursday morning as it spread across Mogadishu. By Thursday afternoon, the fighting in the area Kilometre Four area, where the main battle had taken place, had subsided. But it continued in the Galgato and Dayniile areas. The streets were full of terrified old people and children, witnesses said.
“People are being carried on wheelbarrows to the hospital with broken limbs and gunshot wounds. It’s going from bad to worse.”
The battle for control of Mogadishu has been going on since February, and this fourth round ended a cease-fire of nearly a week, brokered by clan elders.
So far at least 270 people have been killed, most of them civilians, in fighting that was largely confined to the north of the coastal capital, but has since spread south.
“We brought my child to the Hanana medical clinic this morning, two minutes later the horrible shootings began, and our lives were in danger,” Halima Jama, a mother of three, said.
Both sides confirmed the fighting, of which the bulk was in Kilometre 4.
“The fighting is very heavy. They are hitting each other with mortars, anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tanks,” coalition member Ibrahim Maalim said.
'Mogadishu is blazing'
“I have never seen such a heavy exchange. Mogadishu is blazing with fire,” he added to Reuters, as heavy artillery and gunshots reverberated over the telephone.
“There are bodies lying everywhere. I cannot count them and there are wounded people lying on the streets crying for help.”
Maalim said militia for the Islamic courts had pushed the alliance out of a hotel owned by one of its members in a crucial junction connecting the capital’s main roads.
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“The owner of the Sahafi Hotel is a member of the alliance, that is why we seized the hotel and its surrounding areas,” said Ahmed Mohamed, a leader of an Islamic youth organization which supports the courts.
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Witnesses said they saw Islamic militia set ablaze a coalition vehicle. Others saw the bodies of three Islamic fighters on a technical — a pick-up armed with heavy guns.
A 'proxy war' between D.C. and Islamic militants?
Some analysts view the violence as a new proxy war between Washington and Islamic militants. Washington has long viewed Somalia, without any real government since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, as a terrorist haven.
The coalition says the Islamic militia are harboring al Qaeda-linked militants, and some Western diplomats believe that al Qaeda operatives are there and run training camps.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a leading Islamist on America’s most wanted terrorists list, told Reuters from Mogadishu this week the charges were “pure propaganda.”
“There are no terrorists here. They are only looking for a reason to turn our country into another Iraq,” he said.
On Thursday, Internal Security Minister warlord Mohamed Qanyare, under pressure for his involvement in the Mogadishu fighting, denied radio reports he and three other ministers in the coalition were thinking of resigning.
“I did not say that,” Qanyare told Reuters by telephone. “I said we are busy fighting with terrorists now. We don’t have time for the government.”
Legislators from Somalia’s fledging government say Qanyare and other warlords involved in the violence should be fired and charged with war crimes. They say they have broken cease-fire accords signed in Kenya during the formation of the government.