Ethiopia says 1,000 insurgents killed in Mogadishu clashes

ADDIS ABABA, May 19, 2007 (AFP) - Ethiopia said Saturday its troops backing Somali government forces killed nearly 1,000 insurgents in Mogadishu in March and April during some of the heaviest clashes in the city's bloody history.

"Some 200 to 300 Al-Shabaab fighters (Somali insurgents) and other extremists died in the fighting in late March and more than 600 in the fighting that ended on April 26," the Ethiopian foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said 150 others were taken prisoner, "many of them international mujahedeen", but did not indicate where the detainees were being held.

Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan elders and a local rights panel estimated that at least 1,400 people, mainly civilians, died in the clashes, which drew international condemnation for attacks on civilian targets.

Addis Ababa said at least 80,000 people fled the violence, while United Nations agencies said up to 400,000 people were displaced.

"The numbers of those who had fled from the two or three (Mogadishu) districts where the fighting was fiercest was perhaps as many as 80,000, but this was no more than a fifth of the higher UN estimates," the statement added.

African Union peacekeepers from Uganda are due to take over from Ethiopian forces who helped Somali troops expel the Islamists from southern and central Somalia at the start of the year.

Apart from the face-to-face fighting, dozens of people -- including peacekeepers -- have been killed and scores wounded in separate attacks since then, mainly by homemade bombs and grenades.

Renegade Somali leaders living in Eritrea last month vowed to intensify insurgent attacks despite their retreat following the Mogadishu clashes.

Somalia, a nation of 10 million, has been without an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.