Fierce fighting breaks out in Mogadishu. Was it politics or revenge?

BBC World Service at 1705 GMT. This is Chris Bickerton With Focus on Africa

 Hopes of the appointment of a new interim Somali president and government by the Djibouti conference last month would end the endemic fighting in the capital Mogadishu have been somewhat dashed. Armed militias have been on the march and the battlewagons tecnicals have been rolling again in the south of the city. Fierce fighting has led to a number of deaths and civilians have been put to flight. On the line to Mogadishu, I asked our reporter Yusuf Hassan was happening:

Yusuf Hassan: heavily armed militia men loyal to Hussein Aideed, early in the morning they attacked in Bermuda settlement in Hodon District of Mogadishu and 5 people killed at least and more than 7 others wounded, as eyewitnesses said today.

Chris Bickerton: And why did Hussein Aideed's militia today attack this place?

Yusuf Hassan: some people believe it could be some revenge and three days ago some militia belonging to Bermuda area, they killed three people from Hussein Aideed’s militia, one of them Aideed’s special driver.

 Bickerton: I understand quite a lot of people have fled the area. Is that still going on?

Yusuf Hassan: Yes, yes. Definitely a lot of people, they flee from there; their women and children and elders, but the fighting now stopped.

 Bickerton: But how many people have been involved in the fighting?

Yusuf Hassan: We don't exactly know how many people. Actually no more than 20 technicals in Aideed’s militia and others who're involved, but we don't exactly know how many people.

Bickerton: what is the situation now? Is it calm or is it tense?

Yusuf Hassan: The situation at the moment is calm, no fighting. Even some area in Mogadishu it is peaceful. The people, they are talking about what is happen in Bermuda and they are anger with this militia who started the fighting and the people in Mogadishu usually they don't like this fighting especially in this date. They are welcoming the government and the government maybe they will start the job coming days

Chris Bickerton: Yusuf Hassan, our reporter in Mogadishu. So disappointedly for those who hoped for peace, a new flare up of fighting in Mogadishu. Stephan Mayo asked Patrick Gilkes, the former head of our Somali Service if he thought the fighting was based on politics?

 

 Patrick Gilkes: Certainly the fighting appears to be largely from militia supporting Hussein Aideed, who has in fact made it clear not to support the interim president A/kadir[A/Kassim]. S. Hassan, and people who have opposed him, people from the sub-clan of another warlord who support Salad Hassan. So there is that element to that. But on the other hand, I think on this particular moment, it appears to more specific reason. It is meant to be revenge for the killing of someone who was the militiamen of Hussein Aideed few days ago and this in response.

 Stephan Mayo: Some people on the ground say in fact some warlords are quite in a way interested in again wreaking havoc in Mogadishu just to make their that the new "president" is not in a position to dictate

 Gilkes: Well that will have an effect to some decree certainly, but I don't think they have to demonstrate that in the sense that there're warlords in the Mogadishu area who have support, who have made it clear that they're not going to accept the new '"president" for the moment. So there is the risk this kind of political dimension certainly. I don't think they need to worry and build up problems within Mogadishu to underline this. It is already there. There are a lot of disputes still within the new president's backing. He hasn't yet got the full support of everyone who attended the Djibouti conference.

 S. Mayo: Is there a risk if the new president transform, as you said earlier, his militia into official security force for the new state he is going to build? Is there a risk that he will be viewed, sooner or later, as another warlord?

 Gilkes: That is one of the dangers. His difficulties in a sense that he's coming in from the outside. He's been chosen by the Djibouti conference. And there'd been a lot of criticism. People who turned in Djibouti Conference had no constituencies inside Somalia that they were self-appointed, that they include far too many former ministers of Siyad Barre, far too many people who'd been outside the country. And therefore, this is the weakness that the new "president-elect" needs to insure that he's getting support inside Somalia. And to do that, he's got to come to terms, in someway or another, with clan leaders inside the rest of Somalia, and that means also dealing with the warlords and the people who command the militias of those clans. And that he's not managed to achieve.

S. Mayo: What is he to do to convince Hussein Aideed to change his position?

Gilkes: It would important for the new "president" to demonstrate very clearly he has very broad international support that he has got resources coming in. This is very, very important, and one of the difficulties throughout the whole last decade or so in Somalia have been the shortage of resources and the availability of being able to make some mechanism to insure that they cover everybody as opposed to those of one particular clan, or sub-clan.

 Chris Bicherton: Patrick Gilkes, former head of our Somali Service.

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