Fighting Continues in Mogadishu For Third Day

The Somali Islamists didn't go quietly into the night. They're still around and they're causing mayhem in the Somali capital.

Fighting raged for a third day in the Somali capital Saturday as government troops and their Ethiopian allies continued a major offensive to quash a growing insurgency by Islamic militants.

Artillery fire and mortar shells rained down on the capital, sending residents fleeing some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since the early 1990s.

On Friday, insurgents shot an Ethiopian helicopter gunship out of the sky and mortar shells slammed into a hospital, leaving corpses piled in the streets and wounding hundreds of civilians.

According to an official count, 30 people have been killed since the offensive started Thursday. But the fighting was so severe and widespread in Mogadishu that bodies were not being picked up or even tallied, and residents said hundreds more were believed dead across the city of 1 million people.

The insurgents are linked to the Council of Islamic Courts, which was driven from power in December by Somali and Ethiopian soldiers, accompanied by U.S. special forces.

Insurgents were firing mortars from residential areas of the city, and Ethiopian troops responded with barrages of heavy artillery. The attacks occurred across the flat seaside capital, and huge plumes of smoke rose into the air.