(SomaliNet) Islamist-led insurgents clashed on Sunday with Somali government troops in northern Mogadishu in some of the heaviest fighting in weeks, witnesses said, as three people died in attacks in the capital. The upsurge in violence comes three days after Somalia's new Islamist-dominated opposition alliance said its forces had launched a bid to oust Ethiopian troops from battle-scarred Horn of Africa nation. Rival sides pounded each other with machineguns, rocket propelled grenades and anti-aircraft rockets around Mogadishu University and Barakat Cemetery, witnesses added.
"I saw around 50 heavily-armed insurgents attacking the government forces near the university and then fighting started," said Mohamed Ganey, who lives in the city's north. "I then saw smoke rising to the sky from the battlefied. They were exchanging machinegun fire, RPGs, anti-aircraft rockets for quite sometimes," said Ganey, adding the insurgents "were chanting Allahu Akbar (God is Great)."
Another resident Abdullahi Hassan Ali said the artillery duel was "heaviest" in recent weeks in Mogadishu, home to about one million. "It is face-to-face fighting and not like ambushes in the past," Ali told reporters