Ethiopian tanks supporting the Somali interim government pounded insurgent positions in Mogadishu on Thursday, but Somalia’s prime minister said “most fighting” had ended with many hostile areas overrun. Government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks were still working on the ninth day of battles with insurgents to clear “pockets of resistance”, Ali Mohamed Gedi said, after clashes locals say have killed some 300 people, most of them civilians. “Most of the fighting in Mogadishu is now over. The government has captured a lot of territory where the insurgents were,” Gedi told a news conference. Artillery and machinegun fire could still be heard in northern parts of the city. He urged any clan militia who had joined the ranks of Islamist gunmen and foreign jihadists in fighting the government to return to their homes and stay there until his administration could incorporate them into a new national army. The battles have devastated neighbourhoods of Mogadishu, forcing about half of its residents to flee. The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday that the exodus of nearly 340,000 people was fast turning the seaside capital into a “ghost city”.