MOGADISHU, Thursday
Ethiopian tanks guarding a Somali government base in Mogadishu opened fire on unidentified attackers today as clashes broke out in the capital for a second straight day.
Somali women throw stones at the smoldering body of a goverment soldier after he was killed during heavy fighting in Mogadishu today. (AP Photo).
Witnesses said the cannons thundered repeatedly over a 10-minute period, followed by the chatter of machine guns around the base, situated in a former defence department headquarters. 
A separate gun battle also raged in the northern Ramadhan neighbourhood, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties, but hundreds of residents – mainly women and children – fled the fighting pushing their belongings on donkey carts.
“The fighting is still going on. It is the remnants of the Islamists and the government fighting,” said a Ramadhan resident who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal.
The defence department base has been a favourite target of gunmen who almost daily launch hit-and-run attacks on the government and its allies, including African Union (AU) peacekeepers from Uganda who arrived this month.
Both areas were strongholds for the Islamist movement that ruled Mogadishu and its environs for the last half of 2006, until the government and Ethiopian soldiers defeated them and took the capital just before the New Year. The fighting follows one of the bloodiest days in Mogadishu since the government and its Ethiopian allies took over the city from the Islamic courts.
On Wednesday, residents dragged the corpses of what appeared to be government soldiers through the streets before burning them, after gunmen opposed to the government and its allies fought gun battles that killed at least 16 people.
The grisly scenes recalled the aftermath of the 1993 downings of two US Black Hawk helicopters by Somali militiamen during a failed American operation to capture a warlord.
The images of dead American troops being dragged through the streets helped prompt the pullout of US, and later, UN peacekeepers who were battered by regular militia attacks in the Horn of Africa nation.
Though many believe the insurgents are defeated Islamists, diplomats say criminals, warlord fighters and clan militiamen have also joined into a loose coalition opposed to a government they believe is a tool of foreign interests.
In Adado in north-central Somalia late on Wednesday, one soldier was killed and three others were wounded after an inter-clan dispute broke out at a government military camp, a doctor who treated the wounded said.
The fight was between soldiers from interim President Abdullahi Yusuf’s Darod clan and others from the Hawiye clan, a traditional rival. Clan politics play a huge role in Somalia, and the rivalry between the Hawiye and Darod has caused major
Reuters
