By News Desk

MOGADISHU — Somalia’s Islamist rebels had captured a large AU tractor and burned an rock-hard battlewagons in a heavy fighting in the north of Mogadishu, as the well-funded and equipped peacekeepers were defeated, witnesses said on Saturday.

The militants gave journalists a guided tour of the battleground, to let them see a burn gunship AU vehicle and a tractor they seized in a fighting on Thursday near the coast of Mogadishu.

“You see this is a tractor of the ‘Christians’ that we have captured from them” Sheikh Mohamed, a senior Alshabaab official told reporters in the battlefield on Saturday.

“You also one of their most potent armored gunship vehicles we have burnt” he added.

During the heavy fighting that rocked in the city, two AU peacekeepers were killed and five others were wounded, according Mwazinga John, a senior AMISOM official in Mogadishu.

The latest clashes gave the rebels further peacekeepers’ defeat dreams as they suffered the first biggest defeat by the Islamist insurgents.

The AU peacekeepers are the only hope for the surviving of the weak Somali government led by former Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed whose became the feeblest government Somalia ever had as it control few blocks and one street which usually come under Islamist extremists’ attacks.

At least 25 people were killed 56 more were injured in the fighting on Thursday in the Karan troubled district, north of Mogadishu.

The horn of Africa nation has been without government since 1991 after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre regime was ousted from power by warlords and clan militias that turned the country into lasting violence.

Source: Sunatimes

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