Civilians Killed in Somali Clash

At least 11 people, most of them civilians, were reported killed today as government and allied forces launched a major offensive against rebel troops in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Helicopters and tanks pounded rebel positions across the city, leading to hospitals receiving a rush of wounded people.

"Patients are coming to us by the minute, it is too much," one harried doctor at Madina hospital told Reuters by telephone.

"Two helicopters flew over us. One was making a surveillance and the other one was dropping several bombs," said resident Qoje Omar Gesey. The bombs fell near a former market in northern Mogadishu, he added.

Amid the chaos, one mortar flew into a mosque, killing a baby boy and beheading a teenager.

"My children sought refuge at a mosque when it was hit by a mortar shell. My son died and my daughter lost the toes on one of her feet," a local police officer, Hashim Hussein, told Reuters.

Another mortar hit a fuel tank, sparking a huge blaze that engulfed a local watchman and truck owner, witnesses said.

Khalid Mohamed Arabey, who lives near Mogadishu stadium in the south, said the Ethiopian troops met with stiff resistance from a dozen gunmen, who used rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns. The Ethiopians responded with artillery and tank shells.

"I have not seen anything like this," said one terrified inhabitant, Hussein Haji. "Whenever the Ethiopians fire their big guns, all my windows and doors are shaking."

Explosions and gunfire rattled around the streets from soon after dawn, sending residents running for cover in their homes.

The local Shabelle broadcaster said at least 11 people, mainly civilians, had been killed by stray bullets. It also reported two tanks had been destroyed.

"The Ethiopian forces, who are now facing strong resistance, continue to shell," it added. "Two helicopter gunships started bombardments in the rebel positions of the capital."

The Ethiopians had brokered a truce at the weekend with the city's dominant Hawiye clan, after a week that saw at least two dozen people killed, soldiers' bodies dragged in streets, and plane crash, probably due to a missile.

Somalia has seen little more than anarchy for more than a decade. The government, with crucial support from Ethiopian troops, only months ago toppled an Islamist militia that had controlled Mogadishu.

Insurgents believed to be the remnants of Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts have staged almost daily attacks against the government, its armed forces and the Ethiopian military.

The UN's refugee agency said 57,000 people have fled violence in the Somali capital since the beginning of February, including more than 10,000 people who left the city in the last week.

"There has been a steady exodus from the city since the beginning of February, when armed groups clashed with forces [of the government]", the agency said.