By DPA,
Mogadishu : Somali Islamist insurgents rained down mortar shells on Mogadishu airport Friday after an African Union peacekeeping plane landed despite warnings against doing so.
No planes had landed since Tuesday after insurgent group al-Shabaab said it would destroy any aircraft that attempted to touch down at the airport.
Major Barge Ba-Hoku, spokesman of African Union Mission in Somalia(AMISOM) told DPA that the plane was undamaged.
However, both sides exchanged heavy fire, killing at least six civilians and wounding many others.
Doctor Dahir Mohamed, deputy director of Medina Hospital, said that around 40 people had been admitted, while Zehra Ali, a resident in a district near the airport, told DPA around six people died when a shell landed on a neighbour’s house.
Almost daily battles have blighted the Horn of Africa nation since Ethiopian troops invaded in 2006 to kick out the Islamist regime and put the transitional federal government back in power.
Islamist insurgents have since fought back, taking over the key port town of Kismayo and hammering Ethiopian, government and AU peacekeeping troops.
Two AU peacekeepers from Uganda died last weekend, bringing the total number of AU troops killed to eight.
The Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization this week said that a total of 9,474 civilians had died in the insurgency since early 2007.
The government and moderate opposition figures have signed up a peace deal, but it has no effect on the day-to-day violence as al-Shabaab has rejected the deal.
Ethiopian troops must leave before any peace can be negotiated, al-Shabaab says.
The Horn of Africa nation has been plagued by chaos and clan-based civil war since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.