Mogadishu: Warlord's house raided by troops

Mogadishu - The sounds of warfare rattled Mogadishu residents from their beds early on Friday as government troops launched a dawn attack on a house belonging to a former warlord as part of a disarmament campaign.

Explosions and gunfire were heard as troops battled militiamen loyal to the former warlord. A Somali intelligence official confirmed the operation but insisted on anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak to the media.

Launched last week, the Somali government's disarmament campaign is an attempt to reduce the number of weapons in the violence-prone city. The government says some 500 guns were recovered during the first four operations. Friday's operation was the fifth.

Fatima Ali, a Mogadishu mother of four, said the battle sent everyone in her house to the ground for safety.

"We are very terrified", she said. "We haven't heard something like this for some time."

Mogadishu, a city that once hosted open weapons markets, is awash in guns, and government officials have said the latest disarmament campaign is an attempt to reduce the number of weapons that could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda-linked fighters

Raids over the last week have netted some 500 guns and hundreds of boxes of ammunition, said Mohamed Yusuf, the spokesperson for Somalia's national security ministry.

The Small Arms Survey, a research project based in Switzerland, says world governments in recent years have covertly delivered "tens of thousands of small arms and light weapons to various armed groups in Somalia despite a long-standing UN arms embargo".

Somali civilians own more than 500 000 guns, the group estimates.

During the early 1990s, US Marines fighting warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid tried to carry out a disarmament campaign. It had only limited success.

Some Somalis believe the campaign is a political witch hunt aimed at weeding out rivals of the country's leadership as the country gears up for a proposed 2016 national election.

A proposed disarmament law has been approved by the government's cabinet but hasn't yet been voted on by parliament.