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Mogadishu: Four policemen and three civilians have been killed amid heavy fighting between government troops and suspected Islamist-led insurgents in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, witnesses said on Tuesday.
Early on Tuesday, scores of Somali troops and police patrolled the Bakara area, searching pedestrians and vehicles for weapons.
Residents said battles broke out on Monday evening around the Bakara Market, which the authorities say is a hotbed of rebel activity. Locals cowered in their homes as both sides exchanged artillery rounds and bursts of machine-gun fire.
"I saw four dead men in police uniforms lying in the street," said Abdi Hassan, an eyewitness.
Violence has worsened in recent weeks in Somalia's coastal capital, where the interim government and its Ethiopian military allies face an insurgency by the remnants of a hardline Sharia courts group they chased out of the city just over a year ago.
In separate violence in southern Somalia overnight, militia men loyal to Mogadishu's ousted Islamic Courts group attacked Doble, a small town just across the border from Kenya.
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