Tuesday, March 31, 2009

At least nine killed in Somali clashes

At least nine people were killed Monday in separate clashes in Somalia, witnesses and officials said.

Three people, including a policeman, were killed in skirmishes between Islamist gunmen loyal to President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and regular police in southern Mogadishu.

"We are not sure what caused the fighting... both sides are government troops," Ali Said Ahmed, a police officer told AFP.

At least six people, mostly fighters, were killed when government forces attacked a village in southern Somalia controlled by the hardline Islamist Shebab militia.

"We attacked a base that the terrorists were in. We killed four of them and we lost two men in the fighting," said Hassan Moalim Ahmed, a district commissioner of the southern Baidoa town controlled by the Shebab.

Somalia has had no central authority since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre sparked internecine fighting.

Source: AFP

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