Somalia's capital becomes a bloody battlefield

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Hundreds of government soldiers attacked Islamic insurgents across Somalia's capital amid heavy artillery shelling yesterday, battling along streets strewn with bodies as they tried to regain lost ground.

The U.N.-backed government, which held just a few blocks of Mogadishu before the fighting erupted early in the day, said it had taken rebel-controlled areas. The insurgents said they had repelled the attacks.

One Somali reported a busload of fleeing civilians was hit by gunfire, and others told of seeing many casualties. At least 22 people were dead and more than 150 wounded across the city, residents, medical officials, and an independent radio station said.

"We are running out of beds," said Ali Adde, deputy director of the Medina Hospital, where more than 100 casualties were brought. "We cannot cope."

Some patients were being treated outside in hastily erected tents after the hospital ran out of room, he said.

The government offensive followed a few days' lull after Islamic insurgents staged a major attack in Mogadishu. Despite successes, the insurgents failed to gain control of key installations like the airport and presidential palace, which are guarded by African Union peacekeepers.

Among the dead was journalist Abdirisaq Warsame Mohamed of the independent radio station Shabelle Media Network. His editor said he was hit by a stray bullet on his way to work.

The United Nations said 49,000 people had fled the capital. Many families camped out under trees or by the sides of roads, sheltered by nothing more than a few scraps of plastic, without access to food or water.

Somalis have not known peace for a generation, ever since warlords overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991. In the intervening years criminal militias and pirates have built business empires out of the chaos.