By Abdi Sheikh and Ibrahim Mohamed
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's warring parties poundedeach other with artillery in Mogadishu on Friday after anAfrican Union military aircraft defied a rebel ban on planesusing the capital's international airport.
Witnesses said at least 15 people were killed.
The bombed-out city's airport had been abandoned sinceTuesday after Islamist insurgents from the hardline al Shabaabgroup vowed to shoot down any aircraft trying to land there.
In another demonstration of their increasing strength, theIslamists also chased away pro-government militia manningroadblocks in the south of the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
On Friday, a plane carrying AU peacekeepers braved therebel threats and touched down at the Mogadishu airstrip,provoking a barrage of mortar fire from the insurgents.
Government forces and their Ethiopian allies responded withmissiles, heavy machine guns and mortar rounds of their own.
An AU spokesman in the city said the aircraft had beencarrying troops from Burundi, but that none of them were hurt.
As usual in Somalia, civilians bore the brunt of thefighting. At least four residents died and seven were injuredwhen one shell detonated in the Kilometre 4 area of Mogadishu.
SHELLS KILL CIVILIANS
"A group of local teenagers was sitting playing cards hereunder a big tree," witness Abdullahi Farah told Reuters. "Nowtheir flesh is scattered everywhere."
Residents said six bodies lay in another area and that ahouse nearby was hit and burning with three bodies inside.
An official at the city's main Madena Hospital said about50 wounded civilians had been admitted. Two of them, includinga two-year-old child, later died of their injuries.
Since early 2007 the Islamists have waged an Iraq-styleinsurgency of mortar attacks, roadside bombings andassassinations targeting the fragile Western-back interimgovernment and its Ethiopian military allies.
This year, Washington officially listed the group as aterrorist organisation with close ties to al Qaeda.
Fighting in Somalia has killed more than 9,500 civilianssince the start of last year, and an unknown number of gunmen.More than 1 million people have been forced from their homes.
Earlier on Friday, the government's director of civilaviation said it had cancelled the licences of all airlinesthat heeded the "unimportant and baseless" threats from theIslamists and had stopped flying into Mogadishu airport.
(Additional reporting by Sahra Abdi in Kismayu; Writing byDaniel Wallis; editing by Ralph Boulton)
