Thousands of civilians were fleeing Mogadishu yesterday as heavy fighting continued between Islamist extremists and government forces backed by African Union (AU) peacekeepers.

Early on Sunday al-Shabaab militants took the town of Jowhar, north of Mogadishu, and cut the coastal capital off from central Somalia. At least seven people were reported to have been killed in the assault on Jowhar, bringing the total dead in the latest fighting to almost 200. More than 20,000 are estimated to have been forced from their homes in the past ten days.

Concerns are growing that the capital might fall to al-Shabaab militants, who some analysts say have links to al-Qaeda. Around 4,350 Burundian and Ugandan soldiers currently control only a handful of city blocks around the presidential palace as well as the port and airport. They are all that stand between the Islamic extremists and the Western-backed transitional federal Government led by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

On Saturday the UN Security Council said that the time was not right to send in “blue-helmet” peacekeepers. However, John Sawers, the British Ambassador to the UN, said: “The question of a United Nations peacekeeping mission [to Somalia] remains on the table.”

Western powers agreed last month to give $213 million (£140 million) to support the Somali Government but have been wary of putting troops on the ground. In 1993, 18 US Rangers were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

Hundreds of foreign fighters have rushed to back al-Shabaab, according to Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special envoy. Johnnie Carson, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, added that foreign fighters were mostly of South Asian and Chechen origin.

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