By Abdi Guled
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Fighting erupted between Islamist rebels, government forces and African Union (AU) peacekeepers in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Friday, killing at least 22 people, witnesses and medical staff said.
Battles broke out around the city's strategic K4 junction after the insurgents launched a pre-dawn attack on an AU base and on government troops. Witnesses said the clashes spread to three other districts and that most of the dead were civilians.
The toll was expected to increase as the fighting continued through the morning. Fearful residents cowered in their homes as mortar shells detonated around them and bullets tore into walls.
"We have seen 17 dead people and taken 40 others to hospitals," senior ambulance official Ali Musa told Reuters.
A business leader in the Mogadishu's sprawling Bakara Market said a further five people had died there when a mortar shell hit a busy restaurant.
Western security agencies say Somalia, torn by civil war for 18 years, has become a haven for militants plotting attacks in the Horn of Africa and beyond.
The international community wants to bolster the fragile, U.N.-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, which is fighting several rebel movements including al Shabaab. The United States says that group is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.
(Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed; writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Andrew Roche)
