25/09/08 (B466-B) Shabelle / Baïdoa, mercredi : violents combats, durant plus de 6 heures, entre les troupes somaliennes et les insurgés, qui confirment leur engagement d’intensifier leurs attaques, durant le mois béni du ramadan et dans la ville du Président du GNT. Des membres du Parlement sont ciblés. Les attaques sont revendiquées par l’UIC. // Insurgent fighters attack Baidoa town overnight (En Anglais – Info lecteur)

Heavy fighting between Somali troops and Islamist-led insurgents killed has broken out in the southwestern town of Baidoa on Wednesday night, witnesses said.

The Residents in the town told that the fighting was going more than 6 hrs.

The fighting followed vows by the strengthening Islamist movement to intensify attacks over the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Houses of Somali MP’s houses have been tremendously shelled with mortars by the Islamists.

The attacked MPs including MP Mohamed Dhaqane and Sheikh Ali Nor Aden although it’s yet unknown the causalities of those attacks on their homes.

Residents said heavily armed insurgents shouting "God is great" launched an attack on a base for government troops in the at El-Ahmed army checkpoint in the city.

Resident Madey Rage said the fighting started from the police station in the village of Suqaholaha where the Islamists seized in additional hours.

Journalists have been denied from witnessing the wounds or deaths were brought the hospitals but sources at the city’s main hospital told Shabelle that more than 18 injured people in the fighting were admitted the hospital.

Nearly all of the residents experienced the fighting say that more causalities could be anticipated from that heavy fighting.

The Islamic courts union claimed the responsibility for that attack.

The residents of the town have described the fighting as the worst in the town until the Somali government arrived in the town.

Analysts say the Islamist movement appears to be regaining its strength after Ethiopian troops supporting the shaky transitional government chased them from power in December 2006. The Islamists, who had taken control of the capital and much of the south before they were ousted, launched an Iraq-style insurgency.

Earlier this year, they launched a series of hit-and-run raids on dozens of Somali towns. Last month they captured Kismayo, Somalia’s third city, the largest they have held since 2007.

The U.N.-backed Somali government has been riven by infighting and has failed to deliver security or services to its impoverished people.

Somalia has been at war since clan-based militias ousted a socialist dictator in 1991, then fought each other for power. The conflict is complicated by clan loyalties, criminal gangs and the involvement of archenemies Eritrea and Ethiopia, who back opposite sides in the fighting.