MORTAR bombs crashed into central Mogadishu today and Uganda said its first peacekeeper had been killed there as battles pitting Ethiopian and Somali troops against insurgents raged for a fourth day. Clan leaders fighting alongside Islamist hardliners called for a second truce in as many weeks, but hundreds more Ethiopian soldiers were reported to be arriving in the city and there was no let-up in clashes that have killed scores of civilians. Bodies lay strewn in dusty streets, too dangerous to collect amid violence that the International Committee of the Red Cross said was the coastal capital's worst in more than 15 years. Ethiopian tanks and helicopter gunships pounded insurgent strongholds as Islamist rebels and clan militiamen fired back with machineguns, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.Ugandan peacekeepers sent at the head of an African Union (AU) force last month to help Somalia's interim government restore stability have been caught in the crossfire, pinned down at strategic sites including the air and sea ports. "Our troops were guarding the presidential compoundv yesterday when it was struck by mortars. One of our soldiers was killed," Ugandan military spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye said by telephone from Kampala. Five others were injured. Previous ambushes by insurgents that wounded two Ugandans had already made other African states wary of flying in more men to boost the AU force to its planned strength of 8000. Burundi, Malawi, Ghana and Nigeria have all pledged to send troops. A Nigerian army spokesman said its soldiers were ready to go once final details were agreed with the AU. He gave no date.
Fighting broke out yesterday with a barrage of artillery shells striking residential neighbourhoods around the main soccer stadium - the site of some of the heaviest exchanges since the Ethiopian offensive was launched on Friday. Hundreds of Ethiopian reinforcements drove into the city today, passing through the southern outskirts in some 40 trucks, independent Somali broadcaster Shabelle reported. More had crossed the border from Ethiopia, it said.
The fighting shattered a brief and shaky truce between the Ethiopians and leaders of the city's dominant clan, the Hawiye. Hawiye elders today called for a new ceasefire, for Ethiopian forces to withdraw and for international help burying the dead and treating the wounded.