ISLAMIST WATCH:Rival Islamist groups clash in Somalia, 11 killed

MOGADISHU-Eleven people were killed in overnight clashes between rival Islamist groups over a central Somalia region, residents said on Sunday, as fighting continued on the outskirts of their town.Fighters of the moderate Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca captured Wabho town, 300 km (186 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, from the more hardline al Shaabab group in fighting that started on Saturday."I have counted 11 dead people lying in the alleys of Wabho," witness Abdi Ali told Reuters."They were all fighters except a woman killed by a stray bullet. We have been under fire since last night."The fighting between the two groups is the fiercest in recent days and residents say al Shaabab fighters have been flowing into the region to reinforce their numbers there.Habiba Osman, another Wabho resident, told Reuters most of the residents had fled their homes and that fighting was still going on in a forest near the town."I have seen at least 10 injured people but no one has given them any first aid," she said by telephone."There is no hospital here and we hear heavy gunfire in the nearby woods. Other Islamist groups have now joined al Shabaab in the war and we have no hope of peace in the coming days."An Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca spokesman said his group had killed eight al Shabaab combatants and captured seven others.
"We lost one and four others were injured from our side," spokesman Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf told Reuters."We shall conclude the war in a short while, however many terrorist groups there are. Wabho is now in our hand and we are now about to capture El Bur, their biggest base," Yusuf added.Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca says it supports President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed but has warned him against reaching out to its arch-foe al Shabaab, that is on Washington's list of foreign terrorists.Al Shabaab, which is seeking to impose a strict version of Islamic law, controls parts of central and the entire south except Mogadishu.More than 16,000 civilians have been killed in Somalia's two-year-old insurgency and a million others driven from their homes.
(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh, Abdi Guled and Ibrahim Mohamed, editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE52E0OP20090315

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