They are fighting in the capital, with foreign troops, with mortars and artillery, helicopters being shot down, but this is a "major offensive" by the "government". You got that?MOGADISHU, Somalia - Artillery fire and mortar shells rained down on Somalia's capital Saturday as government troops and their Ethiopian allies continued a major offensive to quash a growing insurgency by Islamic militants.
The fighting sent residents fleeing some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since the early 1990s.
On Friday, insurgents shot an Ethiopian helicopter gunship out of the sky and mortar shells slammed into a hospital, leaving piles of bodies in the streets and wounding hundreds of civilians.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said dozens of people have been killed since Thursday and more than 220 injured, most of them civilians with bullet, grenade and other shrapnel wounds. The death toll is likely to be far worse, however — the fighting was so severe and widespread that bodies were not being picked up or even tallied.
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