Five people died in fighting on Wednesday around the Somali capital, where the African Union's peace and security commissioner had flown in to meet the new prime minister. Mortar strikes hit around the airport and the presidential palace after A.U. Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit landed, killing one person nearby, witnesses said.
Suspected insurgents killed four government soldiers guarding a dairy plant. Rebels have been fighting the government and its Ethiopian military backers in a year-long insurgency that has killed at least 6,500 people in the capital. "Insurgents ambushed the troops, killing one soldier. They took his gun and dragged his body," local journalist Mohamed Bashir told Reuters by phone.
"Another unit of government troops arrived to take the dead soldier but the insurgents again fought them," he said. "The four dead soldiers are now lying in the street, I can see them."