May 15, 2009 - 10:03
Scared Somalis running out of food as battles rage

By Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Fighting between the U.N.-backed government and Islamist militias sent frightened Somalis streaming out of the capital Friday, raising fears the government might fall after a week of fighting that already has killed more than 100 people.

Observers fear that if the al-Qaida linked insurgents seize the capital they will gain a safe haven on the Horn of Africa. Somalia's long coastline boarders an important sea trade route and the Horn juts into the Indian Ocean just below the oil-rich Arabian peninsula.

The government controls only one major road in the capital, along with some important government installations, with the assistance of just over 4,350 beleaguered African Union troops.

It is unclear how many troops the government commands. Its forces have been deserting to the insurgents for days, since the defection of two groups of soldiers helped elevate sporadic clashes into raging battles.

Neither the insurgents nor the government have released figures on the defections. But earlier this week, the local television station HornAfrik showed Islamist fighters displaying 17 military vehicles with government plates they said were brought over by a contingent of defecting soldiers.

The other group that defected was guarding a weapons cache at the city's main football stadium in the south of the city.

The two groups of soldiers who defected were the clansmen of hardline opposition leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys. Somalia's powerful clans have filled the vacuum left during the country's 18 years without a central government, and the warlords who lead the clans have helped tear the country asunder.

On Thursday, government Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamed announced that the commander in chief of military forces, Gen. Said Dheere, was being replaced by a police colonel, Yusuf Hussein Dhumaal.

Residents have been fleeing the fighting for days, sleeping under trees and sheltering children under scraps of plastic. The streets are eerily quiet, the shops shuttered; even Friday's calls to prayer have been silenced in some areas of north Mogadishu.

Hawo Hussein, a mother of two, said she was moving to a safer part of the capital.

"There is no hope that the two sides will stop fighting," Hussein said.

Her 2-year-old daughter was strapped on her back and a wad of blankets was balanced on her head. Her son walked behind her. She said she was going to stay with relatives.

But she said if the violence got worse she would flee to neighboring Kenya, where a quarter of a million Somali refugees already live.

Other residents described seeing insurgents, some wearing turbans wrapped around their faces and others in white Arab-style robes, careering around the deserted streets in pickup trucks bristling with weapons.

The few people who have remained to look after houses and property venture out during lulls in the fighting to scurry across the streets in search of food. Many say they are running low on supplies.

They say the fighting is even more intense than when Ethiopian troops supporting the government invaded in 2006 to topple the Islamist regime that had seized control of the capital and much of the south.

After that, the Islamists launched an Iraq-style insurgency, which splintered into several groups.

The Ethiopians left Somalia at the beginning of this year as part of a peace deal. But the election of a moderate Islamist as president and the decision to implement Shariah law has failed to persuade the most hard-line elements to give up their struggle.

Aweys has said he will not enter peace talks until the "foreign invaders" leave — referring the African Union troops protecting the government.

Associated Press Writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu, Somalia contributed to this report.