Somali Militants Attack Troops; 15 Killed

Officials say an attack by Islamic militants against government soldiers in the Somali capital has left at least 15 people dead.

Residents of northern Mogadishu say the insurgents fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on government and African Union peacekeepers' bases in an hourslong battle beginning Sunday afternoon.

Ali Muse of Mogadishu's ambulance service says his staff counted at least 15 dead and carried 20 wounded people to hospitals.

Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise of the police force confirmed the attack. It happened a day after Somalia's parliament passed a vote of confidence in the new prime minister.

The Somali government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu. The country has not had a fully functioning government since 1991.

Last week, an Islamic group that controls much of southern Somalia executed two girls by firing squad, and hundreds of residents of a town were forced to view the spectacle.

Sheik Mohamed Ibrahim sentenced the girls to death in the town of Belet Weyne for spying for government soldiers fighting the Islamist group al-Shabab. The local al-Shabab administration appoints judges and the only needed qualifications are that the person must be a man who knows the Quran.