(Adds quotes from Ban Ki-moon and French envoy, background) MOGADISHU, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Eleven people were killed on Wednesday in fighting between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian forces in the north of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, residents and witnesses said. The insurgents control the south of Somalia and carry out near-daily Iraqi-style assassinations and roadside bombings on government troops and their Ethiopian allies in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation. A spokesman for the hardline al Shabaab Islamists, which is on Washington's list of foreign terrorist groups, said a senior official, Abdullahi Salad Farah, was killed in the clashes. "We shall continue the war until foreign troops get out of the country," al Shabaab spokesman, Sheikh Muktar Robow Ali Abu Mansoor, told reporters, adding that many Ethiopian soldiers had been killed in the fighting. Residents said insurgents opened fire on Ethiopian troops patrolling neighbourhoods in the Livestock Market area early on Wednesday and the Ethiopians responded with heavy weapons. Resident Omar Nur told Reuters a woman and three children were killed by mortars that landed on adjacent houses. Isa Bayle, another resident, said the mortar exchanges killed three people as they fled their homes. Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, spokesman for the Islamic Courts insurgent movement, said two of its fighters were killed. The Islamic Courts were driven from the capital two years ago by Somali and Ethiopian forces. Ethiopia said last month it would pull its troops out by the end of the year and there are fears the country could descend further into anarchy unless more peacekeepers are sent soon. SEAT OF PARLIAMENT The fractured Western-backed administration controls only Mogadishu and the seat of parliament, Baidoa, and the insurgents are camped on the outskirts of the capital. The United States said on Tuesday that a United Nations peacekeeping force should be deployed in Somalia and it would push for a Security Council resolution authorising one by the end of the year. However, speaking at the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "The situation is not ripe, the conditions are not favourable ... If there is no peace to keep, peacekeeping operations are not supposed to be there." Instead, Ban suggested bolstering an African Union force, known as AMISOM, that is supposed help Somalis themselves to restore security but has so far proved ineffectual. France's U.N. ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, asked if the U.S. proposal was realistic, said: "No, it is not ... We think it's not feasible and it's not desirable."A multilateral force rescued a Chinese ship from Somali pirates on Wednesday, in a sign foreign navies patrolling the shipping lane linking Europe to Asia were adopting tougher new tactics against rampant piracy off Somalia. The Chinese boat Zhenhua 4 was one of four vessels seized on Tuesday, the day the U.N. Security Council took a strong stand against the attacks and authorised countries to pursue the attackers on land. (Reporting by Abdi Sheikh, Abdi Guled and Ibrahim Mohamed in Mogadishu, David Clarke in Nairobi and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations) (Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown poses with British troops at Basra Air Station in Southern Iraq during his one day visit December 17, 2008. Brown confirmed during a visit to Iraq ...
