KISMAYU, Somalia, Feb 25 (Reuters)
- At least two people died in fresh clashes between Islamist-led
rebels and militias allied to the Somali government, witnesses
said on Monday, in a sign of the growing threat from insurgents
outside the capital.
Local chairman Ali Hussein Nur said five civilians were wounded
in the clashes, which broke out late on Sunday in the small town
of Doble near the Kenyan border.
"The Islamist militiamen forced their opponents out of town
during yesterday's gun battle," he told Reuters by telephone,
adding that Doble was quiet on Monday.
"Traditional elders have intervened and they will resolve the
conflict by meeting both warring sides."
Nur said one group of fighters had sought revenge for the murder
of a clansman who was killed last week when the Islamists
attacked his music and video rental business.
But a resident said the battle started when Islamists fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at the home of a Doble elder.
"I heard a loud bang and smoke billowed from the house," local
man Abdiweli Mohamed told Reuters by phone. "We ran there but
couldn't approach. The Islamists had taken control of the
building and were spraying bullets at anyone who dared go near."
Another resident said a senior Doble police commander was among
the wounded and was taken to Liboi in Kenya for treatment.
The elder whose house was attacked was said to have given a
radio interview last week in which he accused the Islamists of
"invading" the region and restricting the freedoms of locals.
Last week, Islamist fighters targeted video and music shops and
ordered sellers of khat, a narcotic leaves chewed by many Somali
men, to leave the town or be killed.
Hundreds of Islamist insurgents briefly seized another town in
southern Somalia, Dinsoor, in an audacious attack on Sunday.
Since being chased out of the capital Mogadishu at the end of
2006 after a brief, six-month rule of the south, the Islamists
have waged a bloody insurgency against the interim Somali
government and its Ethiopian military backers. (Additional
reporting by Daud Yussuf; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by
Jon Boyle)
Cabdi Casiis Golf
Xafiiska Wararka Mareeg ee Moqdisho
