Police: 6 Die in Somali Capital - AP

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Police ferreting out insurgents in Somalia's conflict-wracked capital came under attack Wednesday, and a battle that followed left at least six people dead and dozens injured, officials and witnesses said.

Police were attacked with grenades and gunfire when they went to search a possible insurgents' hideout in Mogadishu, said Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise, the capital's deputy police commissioner.

In the ensuing fight near Bakara Market in the south of the capital, two civilians, one insurgent and a policeman were killed, said Barise. Two other civilians wounded in the crossfire later died.
Market merchant Sakariye Bidaar said police arrested a dozen suspects.

Dr. Dahir Dhere of Medina Hospital told The Associated Press that 30 people with gunshot wounds, including nine policemen, were treated at the hospital after the street battle. He said the death toll could rise.

Mogadishu has seen increasing fighting since December, when the Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's fragile government drove out a radical Islamic group that had seized control of much of southern Somalia. Remnants of the defeated Council of Islamic Courts have vowed to wage an Iraq-style guerrilla war until the country becomes an Islamic state. On Tuesday, two unidentified men shot an intelligence officer near his house in the south of the city, said Col. Abdi Wahid, a police spokesman. It was the latest in a string of assassinations of government officials.

Also Tuesday, insurgents pounded a government military base in the northeastern part of the city with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine-guns, starting a battle that lasted several hours, Wahid said.

He did not give any details of casualties. Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other. The current government was formed in 2004, but has struggled to assert any real control.

Source: AP