WORLD BRIEFING / SOMALIA
Rival Islamist groups battled for a central Somali town, killing at least 56 fighters, while the number of people who have fled a month of fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, neared 100,000.
Somalia’s 2 1/2 -year-old insurgency is the latest cycle of violence in 19 years of conflict. An estimated 18,000 civilians and thousands of fighters have died.
Towns in central Somalia have been changing hands regularly between militants and moderates in on-off fighting throughout the year. Rebels with the militant Al Shabab and Hizbul Islam groups wrested control of Wabho town from pro-government moderate Islamists in a day of heavy mortar fire and machine-gun exchanges, witnesses said.
Late in the day, the moderates claimed they had retaken the town, and that they had wounded hard-line Islamist leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys.
The local Elman Peace and Human Rights Center said it had confirmed 56 fighters killed and dozens injured.
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