At least 17 people, mostly civilians have been killed and 37 others injured in heavy clashes between Somali insurgents and government forces backed by African Union troops in the capital Mogadishu, witnesses said on Wednesday.
 
The clashes came after rebels launched attacks on government/AU base in the capital, resulting shelling and bombardment that targeted residential areas in northern Mogadishu.
 
“Several mortars landed at the neighbourhood, killing at least 7 people, all of them civilians,” said a resident of Mogadishu’s Huriwa district.
 
The capital’s Bakara market, a stronghold for Al-Shabaab militants, witnessed worst of shelling with over 10 people reportedly killed.
 
“Two buses that ply route near the market came under attack. More than ten people have died while several others wounded,” said Rahma Ali, who was also injured in the mortar shelling.
 
The clashes come as hundreds of Al-Shabaab fighters have been pouring into Mogadishu, from the country’s southern regions as the government prepares for an offensive against them.
 
Residents have reported seeing several armored vehicles full of al-Shabaab forces armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles streaming into Mogadishu.
 
Al-Shabaab fighters aged under 20 and armed with AK-47s have been deployed in Bakara market,” a trader in the market told Garowe Online.
 
A Hizbul Islam spokesman confirmed his group’s deployment and readiness to the up-coming fighting.
 
We have prepared our troops to resist government offeneives on our positions,” Sheikh Mohammed Ma’alin Ali told reporters.
 
The UN-backed government has announced its plans to launch an all out war against the rebels. However, Al-Shabaab says it has full knowledge of the war, vowing to repel it with all its force.
 
The few remaining Mogadishu residents have started fleeing ahead of the war, joing hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen and women in the internal displaced persons’ camps outskirts of the restive city.

GAROWE ONLINE