Mortars, machine guns and rockets pounded Mogadishu on Saturday in a seventh day of fierce militia fighting that has killed at least 144 people so far and which spread quickly across the ravaged city.
As the street battles dragged on in rundown areas of the Somali capital, the interim government - powerless to stop the shooting and unable to enter Mogadishu - called for foreign intervention to end the worst fighting there in years.
At least 11 civilians were killed overnight and into Saturday as gunmen from a powerful alliance of warlords engaged in close-range firefights and artillery duels with militiamen backed by the city's influential Islamic courts.
Fighting had originally been limited to the northern shantytown of SiiSii, but spread into the nearby areas of Yaqsid and Karan.