Fighting in Somalia Kills 13

04/04/2001| IslamWeb

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Rival armed groups clashed Monday in southern Mogadishu, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more in the fourth straight day of fighting in the capital, witnesses and hospital officials said.The fighting in the southern part of the city erupted Sunday over a convoy of food aid sent to the year-old transitional government of President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan by Saudi Arabia, one of its principal supporters.
Gunmen loyal to faction leaders Osman Hassan Ali Ato and Hussein Mohamed Aidid clashed with members of a rival group who were guarding the convoy of trucks carrying the food from the port of Merca.
Nine people were killed Sunday, and the fighting broke out again Monday after an overnight lull when mediation efforts failed, witnesses said. Among the dead Monday were six civilians, two of them children, killed by stray fire from an anti-aircraft gun.
The violence in southern Mogadishu followed two days of fighting in the northern part of the capital that left 37 people dead. That fighting ended after elders from rival groups asked Abdiqasim's government to intervene and 700 police and security troops were deployed in the area.
In southern Mogadishu Monday, fighters used double-barreled anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks, as well as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns. Both Aidid and Ali Ato oppose the government.
The government inaugurated a 2,000-man police force last month, the first deployed Somalia since President Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991. But anti-government faction leaders with thousands of loyal gunmen still control of many Mogadishu neighborhoods.
Siad Barre's overthrow set off a decade of clan-based fighting that left the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million without a central government until last August, when Abdiqasim and 245 legislators were elected at a peace conference in neighboring Djibouti.
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The clashes began on Sunday after fighters loyal to the militia leaders Hussein Aidid and Osman Ali Atto ambushed an aid convoy at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Mogadishu.There were reports of a lull in the fighting as darkness fell on Sunday, but clashes resumed hours later after attempts at mediation collapsed. More than 60 people have died in a series of clashes in the city since late last we