Mogadishu, Dec 21, (dpa/GNA) – At least six people were killed on Tuesday, in fighting between rival factions of the military in the Somali port city of Bosaso, according to local police.
“Scores of others were taken to hospitals for treatment,” senior police officer Mohammed Ali Hashi told dpa by phone.
Local residents reported that hundreds of people fled their neighborhoods as the violence intensified.
The violence erupted when senior army commander, Mohammed Diyano of the US-trained special counter-terrorism unit, refused to be removed from his post by the president of the north-west state of Puntland.
The administration responded by sending hundreds of armed regional forces to Bosaso to disarm the unit and its leadership.
Somalia, located in the Horn of Africa, has been plagued for years by terror at the hands of the extremist Islamist militia al-Shabaab, which controls vast territories in the country’s south and central regions. It frequently attacks military and civilian targets.
GNA