2008-05-09 20:55:10 -

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - A gunbattle Friday between insurgents and Somali soldiers in Mogadishu left at least six people dead and 13 wounded, witnesses said.
Insurgents attacked a Somali military base near the presidential palace in the south of the capital, leading to an hourlong gunfight, the witnesses said.
«I have seen two civilians killed in the

battle and two government soldiers lying on the ground,» said Mohamed Dini, who said he saw the fighting from a window in his house. Dini said other Somali soldiers collected the bodies when the fighting died down.
Maryan Da'ud said her house was heavily damaged from artillery fire from soldiers guarding the presidential palace, and that her two stepbrothers had been killed.
An Associated Press reporter living in the neighborhood heard gunfire. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.
Dr. Dahir Dhere, the director of Medina Hospital, said 13 people wounded in the fighting were admitted to the hospital.
At least 32 people have been killed in two days of militia attacks in Mogadishu and two rural areas of Somalia.
Islamists had vowed to avenge the death of Hashi Aden Ayro, the commander of the al-Shabab militia killed last week along with 24 others when U.S. fighter jets bombed his home, according to local elders. The al-Shabab commander had been leading the Islamist insurgency in Somalia and was allegedly an al-Qaida leader in the Horn of Africa country.
On Thursday, Islamist fighters briefly seized the police headquarters in Mogadishu in attack that left 11 dead, including two officers and five insurgents, according to police officer Dalmar Mohamed Hassan. He said three insurgents were captured. Witnesses said two government soldiers and two civilians also were killed in the fighting.
«We are fortifying our defensive positions to be ready for other attacks,» Hassan told The Associated Press on Friday from outside the police station, where nearby the burned out hulks of two vehicles sat after having been set ablaze during the fighting.
On Wednesday, insurgents attacked Ethiopian military convoys near two villages in central Somalia, and the soldiers in both cases responded by opening fire on civilians, killing a total of at least 17 villagers, witnesses said.
International human rights groups have accused Ethiopian troops of targeting civilians out of frustration over their failure to halt insurgents who have adopted Iraq-style guerrilla tactics, including roadside bombs and occasional suicide attacks.
It was not known how many Ethiopians died in the militant attacks, and the witness accounts could not be verified by officials. Ethiopia, which sent troops into Somalia in December 2006 to back up soldiers fighting Islamic insurgents, does not make public its military fatalities.

The insurgents said one of their regional commanders was killed.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, a roadside bomb killed three Somali soldiers, a military officer said, and an attack on a World Food Program convoy killed a driver, U.N. officials said.
Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Issa Adow told The Associated Press that his fighters killed eight policemen. He said one Islamist fighter died and two were wounded in the attack. He also said Islamists fired mortars into two Ethiopian military bases in the capital _ a claim that could not be verified.
Associated Press writer Mohamed Olad Hassan contributed to this report.