Somalia clashes 'the worst since 1991'

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Bodies continued to litter the streets of Mogadishu on Monday after two days of intense fighting described by one human rights representative as "the worst" since 1991.

The chaotic situation has made it difficult to ascertain an accurate death toll. Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Group reported at least 81 civilians were killed and more than 100 were wounded as government and Ethiopian troops battled Islamic militants in Somalia's capital over the weekend.

"The level of violence is very high in Somalia, but in particular Mogadishu is going through its worst time in terms of war for the last 17 years of the conflict," said Abdullahi Alas of the Dr. Ismail Jumale Center for Human Rights in Mogadishu.

"Deaths of civilians are just going up each day and there is also an unspeakable displacement of civilians from the capital."

Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and sparked brutal clan infighting. Somalia's current transitional government is trying to maintain control of the capital, with the help of the better-equipped Ethiopian forces.

But the presence of the Ethiopians has united various Islamic militant groups in Somalia, who are trying to oust the Ethiopian forces and gain control of Mogadishu.

One witness told CNN that Ethiopian troops seized a mosque on Sunday in a Mogadishu neighborhood where the worst fighting was taking place. The Ethiopians left the bodies of six elderly men outside the mosque and were separating men and boys from the neighborhoods and arresting them, the witness said.

Sudan Ali Ahmed, the head of Elman Human Rights Group, accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields, while the transitional government's Ethiopian allies shelled residential neighborhoods with tanks and artillery.

"The Ethiopians are firing heavy weaponry into areas where civilians are heavily populated, while the Islamic militants are firing mortars and RPGs from within those areas," Ahmed said. "So the exchange is causing a civilian casualty toll which is unspeakable."

People who live in neighborhoods where the brunt of the fighting took place over the weekend were still trapped inside their homes on Monday. Those brave enough to peek outside their doors said they saw more dead bodies on the streets.

"This morning, we have had a plan to flee from our house after yesterday's clashes," Mohamed Ismaail Ali, a father of eight in the capital's Suqa Holaha neighborhood, told CNN on Sunday.

"But it became totally impossible to go outside the house, because artillery is falling everywhere, let alone the straying bullets which are flying any minute."

Ali said he could see three bodies through his window.

Others were able to flee in large numbers, witnesses reported, joining a population of displaced Somalis that aid groups estimate already tops 1 million.

Residents at Darimoole, a village on the road linking northeastern Mogadishu to the neighboring town of Bal'ad, told CNN that a new exodus has begun.

"The people are fleeing in a large number as (in early) 2007, when first rounds of fighting between the Ethiopians and the Islamic militants happened in the capital," said Omar Hagi Ali, an elder at Dirimole.

On Monday, Somali government security forces detained a prominent journalist as he headed into work in Mogadishu, without disclosing the reason for his arrest. A source at Shabelle Media, the privately-funded network where news editor Abdi Uud works, said he suspects Uud was arrested for Shabelle's reporting on the recent fighting.

The National Union of Somali Journalists issued a statement condemning the arrest of Uud, whose real name is Abdi Mohammed Ismail.

Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Nur Ade had no immediate comment on the latest fighting, the latest in a lengthy insurgency against his government and its Ethiopian backers.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to install the U.N.-backed transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. Ethiopian troops quickly routed the provisional government set up by the Islamic Courts Union, which had wrested control of the capital from Somali warlords six months earlier.

The Islamists responded by launching a guerrilla war that destroyed Ethiopia's plans for a quick withdrawal. A year after the invasion, Ethiopia's government appealed for international contributions to a peacekeeping mission that was supposed to replace its forces, but the African Union-led mission has drawn few takers.

The invasion had the blessing of the United States, which accused the ICU of harboring suspected al Qaeda operatives -- including men believed to have planned the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The ICU denied the allegation, but the insurgency its fighters launched against Ethiopian troops won the praise of al Qaeda's fugitive leaders.