WORLD BRIEFING / SOMALIA

Somali government forces drove Islamist insurgents from two districts of the capital in a day of heavy fighting that killed dozens of people, residents and officials said.

Hard-line rebels with links to Al Qaeda stepped up attacks in Mogadishu in early May, and government forces have been battling to recapture lost ground. Fighting has killed more than 200 people since then, and nearly 70,000 residents have fled.

“We have swept them from the area. Madina and Dharkenley districts are now in our hands,” Abdiqadir Odweyne, a senior police officer said.

The battle for Mogadishu is a test for President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a former Islamist rebel who joined a U.N.-brokered peace process last year and was elected by parliament in January.

Advances by the insurgent group Al Shabab and allies have raised concerns that the rebels may use Somalia as a base to destabilize the region’s two biggest economies, Kenya and Ethiopia.