By Vision Reporter
and agencies

UGANDA soldiers serving under the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia have come under mortar attack twice since Sunday night, spokesperson Maj. Barigye Bahoku has said.

“Last night we had two simultaneous attacks on our positions at K4 and the airport. We defended ourselves and repulsed them without any casualties on our part,” Bahoku said by phone from Mogadishu yesterday.

“This morning, at 10:00am, we were subjected to mortar attacks at the main airport for over one hour. I think the reason is that a cargo plan had just landed to transport camel meat from Mogadishu to the Middle East. We again returned fire and the plane was able to leave safely.”

The insurgents last week threatened to effectively close Mogadishu Airport by firing at any plane attempting to land. No passenger plane has landed since then.

Bahoku did not have figures on civilian casualties but the French press agency AFP reported that at least 10 Somalis were killed in the Sunday night cross-fire between Islamist militants and Ugandan peacekeepers.

“A mother and her five children died when a mortar hit their house,” AFP quoted Mohamed Husein, an elder in the area, as saying. “Minutes later, two neighbours who rushed to assist them, died in the same house after another mortar shell struck again.” Another mortar killed two guards in Taleh neighbourhood, bringing the toll to 10.

“I saw bodies of two men found this morning in a house they were guarding. A mortar killed them overnight,” Hamad Guled, a witness, told AFP. In a separate incident yesterday, mortar bombs hit the Mogadishu central market, Bakara, during a battle between the insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government troops, killing another 30 people, according to Reuters. Bakara traders described a terrible scene.

“We saw four people die on the spot. Their flesh and bones were scattered into pieces,” said clothes seller Nur Omar. Abdi Nur Hassan, who runs an electronics stall, said two missiles landed nearby. “I have seen six people die, some of them missing legs and hands. We collected their bodies, but it is difficult to separate them,” he said.

During lulls in the fighting, Mogadishu residents rushed their wounded to the city's few clinics. Staff at Madina hospital said they had admitted 65 wounded people since Sunday. The Somali Police and the hardline Al Shabaab Islamists blamed each other for the attacks.

“Al Shabaab militant group attacked government bases and foreign troop bases. They also threw mortars at residential areas...So al Shabaab is responsible for all that has happened today and last night,”said police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise. Al Shabaab said government and Ethiopian troops had targeted the residential area, considered a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents, after rebel attacks on the presidential palace.

"When troops die in attacks they target civilians like at Bakara Market today,” Muktar Roboow, an al Shabaab official told Reuters. Ali Dhere, chairman of Bakara business committee, said government-fired shells hit the market, which lies in a densely-populated area. “We don’t know why they are targeting Bakara because this is a market, a public place,” he said.

After being chased away from their power base, Mogadishu, Islamists launched an insurgency in early 2007 that has killed nearly 10,000 civilians and an unknown number of combatants. They have become increasingly bold in the last two months, stepping up attacks in the Somali capital and capturing the strategic southern port of Kismayu.

Al Shabaab is on Washington's terrorism list, and Western security services say the Islamists have close links to al Qaeda. Rebel leaders, however, depict themselves as nationalists fighting an unwanted occupation by Ethiopia.