MOGADISHU, April 27: Fighting between radicals and Somali troops killed 10 people in Mogadishu, and the insurgents took control of the provincial town of Jowhar, residents and officials said on Sunday.

In a second weekend of clashes in Somalia’s lawless capital, insurgents attacked the Villa Baidoa military base in the south of the city, sparking machine-gun fire and mortar exchanges.

Six soldiers died in the overnight battle, an army officer said.

Two women and two men living nearby also died from a mortar hit, resident Farhaan Dahir said.

The violence took a fresh turn at the end of 2006 when the Ethiopian-backed Somali government’s toppling of Islamists in Mogadishu sparked violence that has killed thousands and uprooted a million people.

In a favoured tactic of recent months, Islamists occupied the central Somali town of Jowhar, just 90km north of Mogadishu, overnight.

Abdirahim Isa Adow, a spokesman for one of the groups, the Islamic Courts, said local elders called for help after Somali security forces left and the town became vulnerable to theft and looting by local clan militias. “So we arrived and secured the town. It is not in our plan to remain in Jowhar,” he added.—Reuters