Somali Insurgents ’Take Key Port’

Islamist insurgents in Somalia say they have taken control of the southern port of Kismayo amid fighting that has left dozens of people dead. A spokesman for al-Shabab, Mukhtar Robow, told the BBC his militia had wrested the city from a local clan militia during a third day of clashes. A UN official said about 100 people had been killed and up to 25,000 displaced. There has also been fierce fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, and hijackings by pirates off the north Somali coast. Al-Shabab is a radical wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, which ruled much of Somalia in 2006 before being ousted and launching a rebellion. The BBC’s Mohamed Olad Hassan says Kismayo, Somalia’s third city, is strategically important because it serves as a port for the south of the country and for neighbouring Kenya. On Friday at least 15 people were reported to have died in the Kismayo fighting and 18 injured, with dozens killed over three days of clashes. In Mogadishu on Thursday, some mortars l...