BAIDOA, Somalia, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Heavily armed Somali rebels killed seven government troops and wounded eight others after briefly occupying a southern town on Sunday in the latest show of strength by the nation's Islamists. Since being ejected from Mogadishu at the end of 2006 after a brief, six-month rule of south Somalia, the Islamists have waged a bloody insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian military backers. "At least seven soldiers have been killed and eight others have been wounded in the gunfight between the troops and the insurgents," said Hussein Ali Isaq, a senior police officer in Dinsoor. "I was one of the police officers who escaped when the Islamic Court's fighters seized the town. They left a few hours after they burned three battlewagons and ... confiscated all the weapons in the town," he told Reuters by telephone. A senior commander of the Islamists' Shabab youth wing, Muktar Ali Robow, led rebels equipped with rocket propelled grenades and machineguns as they outgunned government troops in Dinsoor early on Sunday. "Their leader Muktar Robow spoke to the public and said his fighters would not harm anyone. He urged them to maintain their businesses as usual," resident Hassan Maalin told Reuters. Robow was the deputy defence commander for Somalia's Islamic Courts Council (SICC) when it ruled Mogadishu. It was unclear why the Islamists briefly took over the town, but insurgents have carried out similar brief takeovers of other places during the last year. (Reporting by Ahmed Mohamed, writing by Aweys Yusuf, Editing by Jack Kimball and Mary Gabriel)
Somali refugees get down from a Yemeni military truck at the Kharaz refugee camp in southern Yemen February 13, 2008, where they were taken to after they arrived on a boat ...
