Some 15 persons killed in inter-Somali fighting

Some 15 persons were killed and another 25 were wounded in intensive battles between two warring groups in the Somali capital. The confrontations started when members of the military militia led by Mousa Sudi Yalahu stopped a truck loaded with commodities for another rival group in Makadishu and asked for money in order to permit the truck to pass.

Members of the militias opened fire when the escorts of the lorry refused to pay and the gunfire resulted in the death of five persons, including one woman, in the battle.

Fighting also erupted in the same city when the rival forces that follow Hussein Haji Boud transferred the fighting to a region that surrounds the house of Yalahu.

Eyewitnesses said that the intensive fire forced a large number of the population to leave their houses and also resulted in the death 10 persons and wounded another ten, most of them civilians, adding that despite the mediation made by local politicians and leaders, the situation is still tense.

Since 1992, there has been no central government in Somalia when tribal militias toppled the late Somali President Muhammad Seyad Berri.