Heavy Fighting Resumes in Mogadishu

For the fifth day, Islamist insurgents exchanged machine gun and mortar fire with government troops and allied militias. Hours after Somali president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed held a news conference at his Mogadishu residence, Islamist insurgents fired several mortars into the compound.  Insurgents also attacked a base housing African Union peacekeepers from Burundi, and gun battles took place in several areas of the city.