Clan Says Recent Mogadishu Deaths Exceed 1,000

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, April 10 -- A particularly brutal episode of fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu killed more than 1,000 civilians and injured more than 4,000, according to a report by one of the city's largest clans, which was targeted in the violence.

The most recent casualty total is five times that of a tally released last week by a Mogadishu human rights group. None of the casualty figures from the recent violence could be independently verified.

The new report estimates that more than half the city's population of about 2.5 million fled as fighting escalated late last month between the Ethiopian-backed transitional government and an urban insurgency comprising disaffected clan militias and remnants of a popular Islamic movement that the Ethiopians, with tacit U.S. support, ousted in a December military offensive.

Somalia's seaside capital has been the scene of persistent bloodshed since the transitional government took hold, and the insurgency has appeared to grow stronger. But even in a city as routinely violent as Mogadishu, residents deemed the four days of fighting that began late last month the worst in recent memory.

Ethiopian and Somali government troops used tanks and attack helicopters to fire on civilian neighborhoods where they said insurgents were hiding. The insurgents fought back with mortar fire and grenades. Bodies littered the streets and hospitals were filled with wounded.

Ethiopian and Somali forces could be investigated for possible war crimes during those attacks, according to an e-mail to a senior European Union official from an E.U. conflict expert, the Associated Press reported last week.

The most recent casualty figures came from leaders of the Hawiye clan, who say they feel excluded from meaningful participation in the new government, which they see as dominated by President Abdullahi Yusuf's rival Darod clan.

The Hawiye clan supported the short-lived Islamic Courts movement, which was popular for the relative peace and stability it brought to the capital but which included some leaders accused of ties to terrorist organizations. The movement's leaders denied such links.

According to the Hawiye report, the city suffered $1.5 billion in damage to public and private property, including schools, homes, shops, hospitals and warehouses.

A tense truce between Hawiye leaders and Ethiopian troops is holding for now. Last week, however, a top Somali government official told Mogadishu residents to leave, saying another military offensive against insurgents was on the way.