Gun fights between Somali government troops and Islamist rebels in the capital Mogadishu has killed 20 people, including more than a dozen civilians, officials said on Saturday.

The clashes took place after heavily-armed, al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgents attacked a government military base in Dharkenley district, south of the capital on Friday. The fighting was over by the end of the day.

“We pushed them back and killed 13 of al Shabaab’s fighters. We are still at our bases,” Abdiazis Ali, a senior Somali military officer, told Reuters.

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The pro-government militia group of Ahlu Sunnah Waljama (ASW) in Somalia on Friday claimed they killed at least 91 Islamist fighters and wounded 170 others in Thursday’s fierce clashes with rebel forces in Mogadishu.

The group which is allied to the Somali government said it also captured two vehicles loaded with weapons and ammunition supplies from the radical Islamist group of Al Shabaab opposed to the Somali government.

The fierce battles on Thursday left at least 20 civilians dead and almost 60 others injured after allied Somali government forces and the pro-government militias backed by African Union peacekeeping forces launched an early morning offensive on rebel positions in Mogadishu.

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Qatari mediators brokered an agreement between the Djiboutian and the Eritrean governments after months of shuttle diplomacy. Qatar has deployed its forces on the border between the two countries starting late Tuesday night; and by Wednesday morning, the forces had been deployed on the entire disputed areas between the two countries. The number of the Qatari forces is estimated to be several hundred soldiers

Reached by telephone in Djibouti, Mr. Mohammed Taha Tewekel, the director of Gulf News Center confirmed the news. Though Djibouti hosts American and French forces, it is not known whether they had any role in the deployment.

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Djibouti’s rebel Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD) said Monday that it had fought off two attacks by the army and killed three soldiers, in a statement sent to Nairobi.

Last Friday and Saturday, “the army undertook two attacks against fighters of the FRUD in the north of Djibouti, near Bouya (close to the Ethiopian border) and at Eshatou Asmadera (35 kilometres, 22 miles from Obock), the statement said.

“These attacks were pushed back on the two fronts by FRUD fighters,” the rebel movement said, adding that two government soldiers were killed at Bouya and one died at Eshatou.

“Tensions are very high in the regions of Mabla, Moussa Ali and Bouya”, according to the rebels, who “impute the entire responsibility for this escalation to the obstinacy of the regime in locking itself into the logic of war.”

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Moderate Sufis emerged last year to take on Somalia`s powerful al-Shabaab, an extremist group with ties to al-Qaeda. They have won several key areas and have engaged in power-sharing negotiations with the government.

From behind green sandbags, Abdul Gader fired his rusting AK-47 down a narrow road. A Koran, its pages open, rested on the earth near his sweat-soaked body. So did a pile of bullets. Before him was territory controlled by radical al-Shabaab fighters. Behind him was territory Gader and his comrades had taken away from them.

“They are the enemy of my religion and my culture,” Gader, a strapping 17-year-old with a boyish face, declared after pumping another burst of bullets at his targets lurking among crumbling houses.

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The UN Security Council has voted to withdraw a UN force from Chad and the Central African Republic.

The 4,375-strong force is to pull out in stages by the end of 2010.

It was deployed in 2009 to protect hundreds of thousands of displaced Chadians and refugees from the Sudanese province of Darfur.

The withdrawal was requested by Chad. But Amnesty International warned that the UN decision could endanger thousands of refugees in the region.

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At least thirteen people were killed and over thirty wounded when Ethiopian troops based in the town of Buhodle clashed with armed tribal militia.

Reports reaching us from the disputed down suggested that at least ten Somalis were killed and three Ethiopian soldiers when violence broke out at 12:00 afternoon in the town. According to the head of Buhodle hospital, Mr Ali Ukun at least 33 were wounded in the fight consisting of minor and serious injuries.

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