Somali Islamic fighters on Sunday declared "absolute" victory over the remaining warlords in the lawless capital Mogadishu after deadly clashes that claimed at least 21 lives, marking the end of the notorious warlords' rule in the Indian Ocean city. "We have absolutely won the fighting that started in Mogadishu this morning. We now control the whole city after we seized the last territory from warlord Qeydiid," said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the deputy secretary of defence for the Islamic courts.Fighters allied to the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia ousted their rivals loyal to warlord Abdi Hassan Awale Qeydiid, who alongside warlord Hussein Aidid had refused to surrender and handover their weapons to the Islamists, who routed the other warlords from the capital on June 5. At least 21 people were killed, including civilians, in deadly artillery duels in southern Mogadishu, while dozens were wounded and taken to the capital's Medina and Banadir hospitals, doctors, witnessess and fighters said. Witnesses said warlords' fighters fled from their positions, which they had held for many years, as Islamic fighters on battlewagons — pickup trucks mounted with machineguns — established base, marking the end of warlords’ rule in the lawless capital.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard as the vanquished militiamen fled for safety led by Qeydiid himself, according to an AFP correspondent. Aidid, also deputy prime minister in the transitional administration, was in the seat of government in Baidoa, about 250 kilometres northwest of the capital. The two warlords spurned several calls to surrender and give up their weapons, dismissing the Islamists as stooges paid by foreign terrorists to impose Islamic theocracy in the nation of around 10 million people.