At least four civilians were killed Wednesday in renewed clashes in Mogadishu between Ethiopian forces and Islamist fighters that shattered a ceasefire, residents said.
Sporadic gunfire and heavy mortar shelling rattled neighbourhoods where the two sides recently fought the worst battles the Somali capital has seen in 15 years, leaving around 1,000 dead.
Elders from Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan blamed the government for stoking the fighting that scuppered a week-old ceasefire they announced after talks with Ethiopian military commanders.
"The government is behind the resumed fighting and it violated the ceasefire," clan spokesman Hussein Siad Korgab told AFP.
Residents said the four were killed by stray bullets as the two sides exchanged heavy fire in two Mogadishu neighbourhoods.
"The fighting is going on in our neighbourhood and around four people have been killed, one of them a young boy. They were civilians killed by stray bullets," said Gure Ahmed Olow, a resident of Sagah district in northern Mogadishu.
Another resident, Sahal Mohamed, said: "We cannot go outside to check on the casualties because stray bullets are flying all over the place. I have seen three wounded civilians."
"We are very worried and it is clear that the shaky ceasefire has broken because heavy fighting started overnight," said Abdulkadir Mohamed, a resident of Towfiq in south Mogadishu.
Mohamed Hussein Wehliye, a resident of a southern Mogadishu district said: "We ask the warring sides to stop the fighting because it will increase the casualties and only bring damage."
In Cairo, the Arab League announced it would postpone until May 15 a planned national reconciliation conference originally set for April 16 in Mogadishu to allow more time for preparations.
"The delay will allow a full opportunity to prepare for the conference," Samir Hosni, the League's representative for Africa, told reporters.
Last month's heavy fighting erupted after Ethiopian forces launched a crackdown on suspected insurgents accused of attacking government and Ethiopian army positions in the capital.
Somalia has lacked an effective government since the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 touched off a power struggle that exploded into inter-clan warfare.
Tensions have risen again since Ethiopian forces helped the UN-backed government to oust Islamists from Mogadishu at the start of the year. The Islamists have since vowed a guerrilla war against the Ethiopians.
In Asmara, Somalia Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Mohamed Aidid reiterated his demand for the Ethiopian troops to pull out, accusing them of massacre in Mogadishu and of compromising the interim government.
"There is a need to remove Ethiopia ... Only the occupation is working now, there is no transitional federal government, there is only (the) Ethiopian army giving orders."
"The two years remaining (of the government mandate) cannot exist anymore, it has collapsed," Aidid told reporters in Asmara on Wednesday.
Aidid, a former warlord and a member of the Hawiye clan, has been in talks with Eritrean president, who is also opposed to the Ethiopian presence in Somalia.
On Monday, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a senior official of a now-defeated Islamist movement said Ethiopia wanted to "wipe Somalia off the world map" and that the presence of its troops in the lawless nation had heightened Somali nationalism.
Ethiopia's arch-foe Eritrea, which has rejected accusations of fanning the Somalia conflict, has called for an immediate pullout of foreign troops, including 1,500 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda, saying their presence was exacerbating the situation.
