Somalia: sure humanitarian crisis and possible "talibanization"

FOXNews.com - At Least 130 Dead in Fight for Somali Capital - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A fundamentalist Islamic force poured dozens of troops into the battle for a strategic road in Somalia's capital on Thursday in a clash with secular warlords that has left at least 130 dead — most passers-by caught in the crossfire — over the past five days.
The heavily armed reinforcements arrived in pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns. Fighters from both sides closed in on each other following a night of artillery exchanges that sent thousands of civilians fleeing the Sii-Sii neighborhood of northern Mogadishu. Mogadishu residents described it as the worst fighting in more than a decade of lawlessness. Thousands of families were fleeing the capital.
While tending to his wife in the hospital, Mohamud Jama said his three children were killed when three mortar rounds struck his house."This is the first time we have witnessed people fighting in Somalia and targeting civilians in such a savage way," Jama said.
Militia loyal to the Islamic Court Union have been fighting since Sunday to capture a strategic road through northern Mogadishu from the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. While the alliance has held the road through Sii-Sii, the courts have controlled the neighborhoods on either side.

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Technorati Tags: Somalia, Islamic fundamentalism, Humanitarian crisis, UN, USA, Khoffi Annan, Mogadiscio, civil war,