MOGADISHU, July 9: Somalia’s Islamist militia attacked fighters loyal to defeated warlords in Mogadishu on Sunday in heavy street battles that killed at least 20 people and wounded scores including refugees, witnesses said.

The death toll looked set to rise further in the most serious flare-up since the militia took over the Somali capital from US-backed warlords a month ago.

Mogadishu’s war-weary residents ran for cover as rival militia fired machineguns and pounded each other with mortars near Mogadishu’s volatile Kilometre Four district, which had been a pocket of warlord resistance to the Islamists.

“I am fighting for Islam and I don’t fear dying,” Ahmed Hashi, who sustained head injuries, told Reuters near the scene amid a cacophony of rifle and missile fire.

The Muslim militia, determined to take complete control of the coastal Somali capital, set a daybreak ambush for fighters loyal to Hussein Aideed, an interior minister in the interim government, and another warlord Abdi Awale Qaybdiid.

“This is part of the anti-terror war,” the Islamists’ leader, cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, told Reuters from his base in central Somalia.

“We have no option but to finish off this remaining war.”

As the Islamists put up checkpoints round the area to prevent their foes escaping or receiving help, both warlords vowed their men would dig in and fight to the end.

“We will continue defending ourselves,” Qaybdiid told Reuters by telephone as shots sounded around him.

Aideed, speaking from the provincial town of Baidoa where the government is based, said: “They took over one of our bases in the Hosh area of western Mogadishu, which was in our hands for the last 15 years ... We won’t give up.”

Staff at one of Mogadishu’s main hospitals said victims were pouring in on the back of pickup vehicles in scenes reminiscent of battles earlier this year when the Islamists won the city.

“Every five minutes, vehicles carrying wounded are coming in,” said hospital administrator Ali Moallim.

He said 20 people had died and nearly 100 were wounded, many with serious gunshot wounds, some requiring amputation.

“The death toll will definitely rise.”

One anti-aircraft missile hit a refugee camp at Kilometre Four, wounding a pregnant woman and her three-year-old daughter.

“There was blood everywhere ...really awful,” said neighbour Ali Hubale.

Residents wheeled them to hospital in a cart.

After the June 5 capture of Mogadishu, the Islamists went on to take other towns across a large swathe of south Somalia.

That has challenged the aspirations of the western-backed interim government, which was formed in Kenya in 2004 and is based in Baidoa because it is too weak to go to Mogadishu.

Diplomats fear confrontation between the two sides and a military intervention by Ethiopia.

Talks between the government and Islamists to avert that are scheduled to take place in Sudan on July 15.

“They should all go to the negotiating table of Khartoum, instead of killing each other,” said Mogadishu resident Mahdi Abukar, despairing of the new violence.—Reuters