MOGADISHU (Xinhua) — Fourteen people including four Ethiopian soldiers Woyanne mercenaries were killed and 20 others wounded on Wednesday in separate clashes between insurgents and Somali government forces and foreign forces in south and central Somalia, witnesses and local media reports said.
Somali insurgents launched an attack on the Ugandan contingent of the African Union peacekeepers in K4 area in the south of Mogadishu, the capital. An exchange of heavy artillery fire between the two sides continued for nearly an hour.
“Three people died and four others were wounded in our neighborhood,” said Ali Hassan, a witness in K4 area where the fighting was concentrated.
A number of stray shells and bullets hit in neighborhoods far away from the battle areas in south Mogadishu where two more civilians were killed and five others were wounded, local media reported.
Major Bridgye Bahuko, spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said the attack was carried out by what he called “anti-peace elements,” adding that his contingent suffered no fatalities.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack which comes a day after UN Security Council extended for another six months the mandate of the AMISOM peacekeepers who now number nearly 2,600 out of an 8,000-strong AU peacekeeping force authorized last year.
Separately, two Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers were reportedly killed by an insurgent ambush in Gubta neighborhood in northwest Mogadishu after the troops fanned into the area.
Witnesses said two other Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers were also killed in grenade attack in the central Somali town of Beledweyn where sources said two civilians have also died while three others were wounded in the attack by unknown assailant against an Ethiopian Woyanne army checkpoint.
Meanwhile in the southern port city of Kismanyo, three people died and eight others were wounded after a grenade attack on a pickup truck used by local militia missed its target. Gun battle between suspected insurgents and local militia ensued and spread to other parts of the city before it died down.