MOGADISHU: Heavy gunfire shook Somalia’s capital overnight and smoke rose over the city on Thursday, AFP journalists reported, after pitched battles erupted between political factions ahead of planned protests.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud plunged Somalia into a new political crisis in mid May with his announcement that his term, due to expire on May 15, would be extended for a year.
The opposition and regional leaders have rejected the move and demonstrations against it were due to take place in Mogadishu on Thursday.
But as opposition leaders came to the city ahead of the protests on Wednesday, clashes broke out and continued sporadically through the night, according to AFP journalists in the area.
Police said they were conducting a “large-scale security operation” against “heavily armed militias who launched mortar attacks on some neighborhoods of the capital.”
