Deaths as Somali factions clash
Pro-goverment fighters clash with rebels in central Somalia, leaving at least 24 dead.
“Civilians fled to bush areas, some were barefoot with no belongings.”
‘Fierce fighting’
Al-Shabab has been fighting to topple Somalia’s African Union-backed government, which is led by Sharif Ahmed, the president.
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Al-Shabab controls most of southern and central Somalia, but it has failed to reach the well- protected presidential compound and topple Ahmed.
“Large forces of al-Shabab … attacked us but we chased them away after fierce fighting,” Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf, an Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca spokesman, said.
“Their goal was to capture Dhusamareb, but they failed.”
A local al-Shabab official said that his forces would seize the whole region from the pro- government militia.
“We shall never stop fighting until our fighters capture the whole region and impose the Islamic sharia,” Yusuf Sheikh Isse, a senior al-Shabab official, told reporters.
Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years and Western nations and neighbours say the country is used as a shelter by fighters planning attacks in East Africa and further afield.
More than 21,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the violence.