Somali gunmen battled government and Ethiopian troops on Saturday in a crowded Mogadishu market, killing four people in the latest flare-up after a war that ousted Islamists, witnesses and officials said.
The shootout - following mortar strikes on the presidential palace after dark on Friday - was the latest flare-up in a guerrilla-style campaign against the allied forces who ended the Islamists' six-month rule of the south at the New Year.
Civilians caught up in the melee said a gunman with an AK-47 opened fire on an Ethiopian military convoy at the livestock market in the north of the capital, triggering a heavy shootout. The Ethiopians fired an anti-aircraft gun into the air, panicked bystanders fled for cover, and a tank ran over a minibus in the confrontation, they added.
Four people died and about a dozen were injured, the witnesses told Reuters, indicating it was civilians who were mainly affected. It was not known if the gunman died. Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari, however, said he had only heard of two people dying. He said the incident began when government troops were chasing those behind Friday's shelling.
The African Union (AU), which approved a peacekeeping force for Somalia late on Friday, said the unabated violence in Mogadishu showed the need for quick deployment. President Abdullahi Yusuf, who moved there after the recent ousting of Islamists who had controlled most of south Somalia for six months, was inside but unhurt, government sources said.
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