Police and protesters exchanged fire in Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least one person, a government source said, as hundreds of Somalis demonstrated against Ethiopian troops and a disarmament drive. Protesters hurled stones and burnt tyres, wreathing streets in smoke and reviving memories of the chaos that had largely stopped during six months of strict Islamist rule. Protesters shot at policemen, the police returned fire killing one man, a government source said. I dont know how many people have been wounded. A witness said three people had been killed and that Ethiopian troops had opened fire. The Ethiopians opened fire and shot dead a young boy and a lady, they also killed another person, the witness said. In the latest show of discontent with the forces that ousted the Islamists, hundreds of Somalis marched through the capital chanting Down with Ethiopia. Women waved the Koran while witnesses said children were among the demonstrators.
Ethiopian soldiers fired in the air to disperse crowds and government troops armed with AK-47s patrolled the streets. Somalias interim government wants to install itself in Mogadishu, one of the worlds most dangerous cities, after ousting the Islamists last week with the help of Ethiopian tanks, troops and warplanes. Within hours of the Islamists fleeing, militiamen loyal to warlords reappeared at checkpoints in the city where they used to rob and terrorise civilians. Their return showed how easily Mogadishu could slide back into the anarchy and clan violence that has gripped the city since the 1991 ouster of a dictator. We are against the Ethiopian troops occupation. We dont want them, they should leave, 20-year-old protester Ahmed Mohamed told Reuters. They are harassing us in our own country. The government is imposing the Ethiopians on us.
A hospital source, speaking before the shooting incident, said at least five civilians were hurt. The interim government had given Mogadishu residents until last Thursday to hand in their weapons or be disarmed by force. Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told local radio on Saturday the disarmament programme had been postponed. Few weapons have been handed in as locals wait to see if the government can impose the relative stability experienced under the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC).
The SICC had controlled much of southern Somalia after ousting warlords from Mogadishu last June, but have been forced into hiding after being routed from their strongholds in two weeks of open warfare. They have vowed to fight on, melting into the hills in the remote south where Ethiopian and government forces are hunting hundreds of their fighters.
Kenya has sent troops to seal its frontier, blocking entry to Somalis fleeing fighting. A local official said 23 suspected Islamist fighters, including foreigners, had been arrested. An assistant immigration minister told Reuters five Somali members of parliament had been detained in Nairobi for questioning on suspicion of helping the Islamists. The Ethiopian presence in Somalia was sure to provoke a response from residents, who view the Horn of Africas Christian-led military giant across their border as a rival.
Somali government forces and Ethiopian allies rained down mortars and rockets on Islamist fighters dug in near a southern port town on Sunday to start a battle that could be the last stand for the Islamists. As night fell, the Islamists who fled Mogadishu three days ago to take refuge around the towns of Kismayu and nearby Jilib, fired back from trenches in scrubby bushland, witnesses said. "We will continue fighting the Ethiopians from everywhere until they leave Somalia," Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Ali Mudey told Reuters from the area. 
The Islamists have built trenches with bulldozers and have more than 60 "technicals" -- pickups mounted with heavy weapons -- supporting some 3,000 fighters, witnesses say. "We decided to come to the bush here in order to continue with the jihad against Ethiopia. I am on the frontline, I'm just waiting to kill the invading Ethiopians," spokesman Mudey added.
Amid confusing initial reports, residents said they saw mortars and rockets falling on deserted houses in Jilib from Bulobaley on one of two roads the Ethiopian-Somali government force had been marching along toward the Islamist defenses. "They are using heavy and light weapons against each other. I have to flee from some of the weapons that are hitting the town," resident Madey Osman said. Jilib lies about 45 kms (28 miles) north of Kismayu, where senior Islamist leaders Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed are based.
Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops, tanks and warplanes attacked Islamist fighters dug in for a last stand near a southern port town on Sunday, witnesses said. "Fighting has started here. We are on the outskirts of Jilib," lawmaker Abdirashid Hidig told Reuters by phone.
KISMAYU, Somalia - Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops, tanks and jet fighters edged towards the southern port town of Kismayu on Sunday to attack retreating Islamists who have dug in for a last stand.
Ethiopian tanks rumbled south from Mogadishu to attack Somali Islamists on Saturday after the religious movement's leaders called on their fighters to take a stand in the port city of Kismayu. Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, whose forces fled the Somali capital on Thursday, also urged thousands of residents gathered at a Kismayu stadium for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha to defend their country and faith from government troops backed by armor, soldiers and jet fighter planes from mostly Christian Ethiopia. "Our country is under occupation so we have decided to fight," he told the crowd as Islamist troops on trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns stood guard outside.
Somalias Islamists are in full retreat after Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000 of the religious movements fighters, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday. A joint Somali government and Ethiopian force has broken the back of the international terrorist forces... These forces are in full retreat, Meles told reporters in Addis Ababa, adding that up to 1,000 Islamist fighters had been killed. A few are Somali but the majority are foreigners, he said of the dead. 