Fighting reported in southern town

Fighting was reported on 14 September in Qoryoley, 130 km south of Mogadishu, local sources told IRIN. The fighting was reportedly between militia of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA), which controls the Bay and Bakol regions in southwestern Somalia, and Islamic court militia allied to the Transitional National Government (TNG), local media reported. The RRA took the town without much fighting on the morning of 14 September, and briefly held it, the sources said. Islamic court militia, which control much of the Lower Shabelle region, southern Somalia, recaptured the town "hours later". AFP on 14 September reported that at least three people were killed and eight wounded in the clashes.

However, a humanitarian source in Marka, the Lower Shabelle capital, 35 km east of Qoryoley, told IRIN that the fighting was an internal power struggle between Qoryoley residents, and "had nothing to do with the RRA or the courts". According to this source, the TNG had asked the people of Qoryoley to set up a local administration, whereupon two groups started vying for positions in the proposed new administration. One group wanted the administration to be appointed from Mogadishu, "in the hope that their friends in Mogadishu would appoint them", while the other was insisting that locals could and should set up the administration with no interference from Mogadishu, said the source. Qoryoley was reported calm on Monday, with clan elders meeting to resolve their differences, sources told IRIN.