At least five civilians died and over a dozen were wounded on Saturday as Somali government forces clashed with Islamist rebels they are trying to flush out of the war-riven capital, witnesses said.

Fighting resumed late afternoon in two districts of the oceanside capital Mogadishu after a brief morning skirmish.

"One of my neighbours and two other civilians have died," said Asha Olow, speaking to AFP by telephone. "Fighting is still going on in our neighbourhood."

In southern Mogadishu, two others were killed when a mortar shell landed near a cafe in the Bakara area, an insurgent stronghold.

"We ran away from the area to escape the mortars which were were falling randomly," said Farah Yusuf, another witness.

Ali Musa Mohamed a medic with an ambulance service said they had collected at least 13 wounded civilians.

An AFP reporter earlier heard an exchange of mortar and artillery fire in areas close to the presidential palace.

At least 31 people were killed on Friday, most of them civilians trapped in the crossfire or claimed by mortars in the deadliest of most days since fighting broke out a forthnight ago.

The calm in the morning saw many inhabitants packing up and fleeing the city, some on donkey-drawn carts to camps outside the capital.

Somali police officer Colonel Mohamed Adan earlier said "many people are fleeing to avoid upcoming attacks".

Some locals said fighting on Saturday broke out when government fighters opened fire on extremist positions.

On Friday, government forces encountered fierce resistance as they tried unsuccessfully to drive the Islamist insurgents from the capital.

With President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed holed up in his compound with a handful of supporters and under African Union peacekeepers' protection, his embattled forces attacked insurgents in three positions they had lost in two weeks of fighting that have now killed close to 150 people.

Aid agencies said as of Friday afternoon the two weeks of fighting had displaced 49 000 people.

The Somali capital has been ravaged by 18 years of almost uninterrupted civil conflict and emptied of hundreds of thousands of residents by the violent fighting that followed Ethiopia's 2006 invasion.

The Shebab and Hezb al-Islamiya fighters are the main insurgent groups trying to topple Sharif's internationally recognised transitional government.

The rebels launched a fresh round of attacks on 7 May and said they had received the support of foreign fighters.

Eritrea is accused of supporting the insurgents and of playing a role in the latest offensive aimed at helping radical Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys remove his former ally Sharif from power.

The six-nation east African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) called on Wednesday on the United Nations to impose sanctions on Asmara — a position backed on Friday by the pan-continental African Union.

Eritrea hit back on Saturday and said IGAD was responsible for the mess in Somalia.

"This is an irresponsible resolution by an inept organisation which bears primary responsibility for the current mayhem and crisis in Somalia," the Eritrean foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

Somalia has not had a central government since the ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 which set off an interminable and bloody cycle of clashes between rival factions.

AFP

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