al-Shabaab... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim
al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...
fighters in Mogadishu.
The civilians, among them women and kiddies, were killed on Saturday after the fighting broke out in Mogadishu's northern districts of Bondhere and Dayniile as well as the southern district of Hodan, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported.
More than 67 people were also maimed when Somali soldiers and al-Shaboobs exchanged heavy gunfire, and barrages of mortar shells were fired.
Al-Shabaab front man Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rageh claimed that at least 20 government troops were killed after both sides engaged in bloody skirmishes.
However,
The all-purpose
However...
Somali police front man Col. Abdulahi Hassan Barise rejected the claim, saying that government forces have captured nine under-age children, who were recruited by the al-Shabaab group and forced to fight for them in the frontline.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Over the past two decades, up to one million people have bit the dust in the fighting between rival factions and due to famine and disease.
There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia, and over 300,000 IDPs are sheltering in Mogadishu alone.
Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations
... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
High Commissioner for Refugees.