Somalis Ask for Foreign Help as Fighting Spreads

MOGADISHU, Somalia, May 13 -- Mortars, machine guns and rockets pounded Mogadishu on Saturday in fighting between militias that has killed at least 144 people in the past seven days and spread quickly across the city.

The interim government, which has been unable to assert authority in the nation of 10 million, called for foreign intervention to end the deadliest clashes in years in the capital.

At least 11 civilians were killed overnight and early Saturday as gunmen from a powerful alliance of secular warlords engaged in close-range firefights and artillery duels with militiamen backed by the city's influential Islamic courts.

Most of the dead and many of the hundreds injured in the violence have been civilians. Aid workers said they feared more civilian casualties, and residents continued to flee their homes, taking basic possessions with them.

The interim government appealed for humanitarian aid for the victims.

"We . . . call upon and invite the international community to intervene and get involved in the crucial situation in Mogadishu by . . . cooperating fully with the Somali transitional federal government to rescue the innocent suffering people," Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir said in a statement.

Fighting had originally been limited to the northern shantytown of Sii-Sii but erupted Saturday in neighborhoods across southern Mogadishu.

Warlords closed off routes to Mogadishu, including a key road connecting the city to southern Somalia, to block the advance of a powerful Islamic militia reportedly heading to join its allies.

Abdi Hassan Awale, a secular warlord, said his fighters were checking all vehicles entering and leaving the city for foreigners believed to be training and fighting alongside the Islamic militias.

"It was necessary to put pressure on these roads to catch the foreigners and the supporters trying to escape from the capital," Awale said.