Somalia federal troops, armed opposition clash in Baidoa city - report

Somalia's federal troops and armed opposition groups clashed in heavy fighting in Baidoa city center on Monday, a local resident and an army officer told Reuters.

"Militias loyal to the former Baidoa president entered Baidoa from two sides, challenging two battalions of federal military. Fighting has intensified now," a shopkeeper in the city claimed. The shopkeeper also said federal troops were using heavy weapons and that he had seen at least two civilians killed in their homes by stray bullets, with several others injured and taken to hospital.

Federal forces have controlled the city since March, when they seized control in an operation that prompted South West state leader Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen to resign. Laftagareen's spokesperson, said in a Facebook post that their troops had captured Baidoa and called on federal forces to surrender. Reuters could not independently verify that claim.

Captain Osman Abdullahi, a Somalia federal military officer, disputed Leftagareen's spokesperson, saying, "The armed militias attacked Baidoa this morning; we are pushing them back... There are casualties as stray bullets enter houses." The clashes mark a significant escalation in tensions between federal authorities and forces loyal to the former South West state leader, five months after federal troops took control of the city.

Fresh fighting in Baidoa could compound a dire humanitarian crisis already gripping the area. The city hosts hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and one in four children at displacement sites there are severely malnourished, according to a July survey by Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Baidoa is home to international peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies and is one of Somalia's largest cities, with a population of over a million people. The renewed violence raises concerns about the safety of aid operations serving Baidoa's large displaced population.