11 killed in heavy fighting in Somali capital

MOGADISHU — Heavy fighting erupted Thursday in Somalia's capital Mogadishu between African peacekeepers and hardline Islamists killing at least 11 and injuring 25, officials and witnesses said.The fighting broke out at 6:00 pm local time when heavily armed militants from Hizb al-Islam attacked army positions in southern Mogadishu's K4 junction where African peacekeepers and Somali forces are stationed."The fighting was very heavy and 11 people, some of them civilians, died," said Colonel Mohamed Nur."Heavily armed rebel militias with the backing of foreign fighters attacked the base of the African peacekeepers and our security forces near K4 intersection but they were pushed back," he added."We have attacked the positions of the enemy ... we killed many of them," Mohamed Osman Arus, Hizb al-Islam commander said.Witnesses said the fighting was intense and involved machine guns, mortars and rocket propelled grenades."I saw around six dead bodies, two of them were lying near K4 junction where the fighting started, several other civilians also died in Bakara and Holwdag neighborhoods where mortar shells struck," said Abdishakur Muse, a Mogadishu resident."We have collected around 25 injured civilians from neighbourhoods some of them far from the fighting zone as mortar shells were reaching faraway areas causing civilian casualties," said Ali Muse, head of Mogadishu Ambulance service said.Officials from the African Union peacekeeping force could not be immediately reached for comments.The hardline Shebab rebels and their allies from the more political Hezb al-Islam movement have since May been engaged in a military offensive to topple the transitional government that has caused hundreds of civilian deaths and displaced tens of thousands.http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ivQl7cI1DFUWHsjLsqt4HpFdIZDQ