Somalia: Somalia's weakened transitional government yesterday ruled out the resumption of peace talks with the country's Sharia courts movement and accused Islamist fighters of violating a truce signed last month.
Heavy fighting has left more than 25 people dead in the capital Mogadishu during the past two days as Islamic militias tackled a pocket of resistance.
In an interview with the BBC World Service, Ali Mohammed Gedi, Somalia's prime minister, said his government would not take part in talks due to resume in Khartoum at the weekend.
He said he would deal only with civil society and mainstream members of the courts.
"We will not sit with radical members of the Islamic Courts; we will sit with those who are moderates," said Mr Gedi.
His words were echoed by other members of the government, who said the Islamists should withdraw to positions held on June 21st when the truce was signed.
The Union of Islamic Courts has grown rapidly in strength since wresting Mogadishu from a coalition of warlords backed by the United States.
In the past month, its influence has spread across a swath of central and southern Somalia, leaving Gedi's government penned in its base, the dusty, gun-ridden town of Baidoa.
The courts have imposed a strict form of Sharia law on the areas under its control, banning western movies and music.
At the same time, the movement's moderate leaders appear to have been sidelined in favour of radicals such as Sheikh Hussein Dahir Aweys, accused by the US of having links to al-Qaeda.
Another leading cleric has said that Muslims who do not pray five times a day should be sentenced to death, fuelling foreign fears that they are planning Taliban-style rule.
Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued in the capital yesterday.
Islamist leaders said they were battling supporters of Abdi Awale Qaybdiid, the last of the warlords who had refused to disarm.
Sheikh Aweys said: "We have been attacked by the alliance of warlords, and Qaybdiid's militia are the remnants of that alliance, so there is no other option but to fight to the finish."
Residents, who last month welcomed the fall of the hated warlords, hunkered down in their homes as mortar shells flew across the city.
Residents said the streets were empty as militiamen traded automatic weapons fire, and "technicals" - pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons that are Somalia's version of tanks - rolled forward with their guns blazing.
Doctors said at least 20 dead and 40 wounded were taken to four hospitals in Mogadishu over the weekend.
The latest unrest brings the toll to at least 381 dead and more than 2,000 wounded in fighting which first erupted in February when the US-backed Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, a group of warlords, sought to curb the growing influence of the Islamists.