Somali leader vows no surrender as new fighting erupts

Embattled Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Thursday vowed to fight insurgents to the bitter end as fresh clashes erupted in the south of the capital.

"We will fight to death until peace is assured," Sharif told reporters as his forces and hardline Islamist militants exchanged mortar shells and heavy fire in parts of the capital.
Sharif spoke after talks with clerics from a moderate but influential Sufi religious sect who pledged to take up arms to shore up his shaky administration."From now on we are ready to stand by the government of Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. We will defend it and we will fight the rebels," Sheikh Ali Dhere said after meeting the president.The Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa sect is a national Sufi movement which had not been known to engage in armed action in recent years.
But some of its members in a region near the border with Ethiopia in January took up arms against the Shebab, whose ideology is closer to the more rigorous Wahhabi brand of Islam.
Fighting on Thursday spread to several neighborhoods in southern Mogadishu after government forces using anti-aircraft weapons and mortar shells targeted insurgents' positions..more..http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090604/twl-somali-leader-vows-no-surrender-as-n-696b303.html