Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi claimed victory over insurgents in Mogadishu on Thursday, after nine days of bloody street battles using tanks and artillery that have left hundreds dead. «We have won the fighting against the insurgents,» the prime minister told The Associated Press by telephone from the Somali capital, saying that small, mopping-up operations were still under way. «The worst of the fighting in the city is now over.» Machine gun fire and artillery fire could still be heard in the south of Mogadishu, a wrecked coastal city of 2 million people. Gedi said the 340,000 Somalis who have fled the worst fighting the city has seen for the last 15 years could now begin returning to their homes. He said government forces and their Ethiopian allies had captured an insurgent stronghold in the northern part of the city and that more than 100 fighters had surrendered.
