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Gunmen fired a barrage of rockets in several locations in the Somali capital, sparking artillery duels with government security forces, as guerilla-style attacks continued to intensify, witnesses said.
An AFP journalist reported heavy shelling near Villa Somalia, the residence of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, in the south of the capital, where artillery fire illuminated the night sky.
Witnesses said gunmen fired grenades into Madina police station, triggering a gun battle.
“I saw gunmen attacking a police station. Then fighting started and one policemen was injured,” Osmail Mohamed, a resident told AFP.
There were no immediate reports of more casualties in the Indian Ocean city as residents remained indoors fearful of getting caught by stray bullets.
The attacks, which have steadily intensified since joint Somali-Ethiopian forces ousted as Islamist movement last month, were yet another sign of spiralling instability in the country.
Dozens of people have been killed in such attacks, targeting positions held by the government and its allies, in the past month.
The Mogadishu attacks came hours after a bomb exploded in the southern Somali port of Kismayo, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of the Mogadishu, killing four people and injuring several others.
Among the injured was the recently appointed Somali military chief General Adbi Mohamed, who was addressing scores of residents.
As the country teeters dangerously between sliding back to an all-out war and limping forward towards developing functioning state structures after more than a decade of chaos, the international community is struggling to raise funds and troops for a planned peacekeeping force.
The African Union has managed to raise half of the required 8,000 peacekeepers expected to be deployed in order to bolster the Yusuf's feeble government.
The entire Somali government is based in the backwater town of Baidoa, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of Mogadishu.
Yusuf, a former warlord, and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi have failed to make good their pledge of relocating to the capital, which has been described as one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
The defeated Islamists have vowed to attack and kill peacekeepers, a spectre that dampens hopes of such a deployment, which has been delayed since 2005 for fear of further confrontation and insufficient funds.
A previous 1993-1995 peace mission ended disastrously after UN and US troops fled the country, paving the way for the rise of clan warlords who hopelessly sub-divided the nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms.
Though the warlords were defeated by the Islamists in June, they have been regrouping in the capital, but maintaining a low profile.
In addition, the surging violence calls into question Yusuf's pledge to convene a national reconciliation conference to heal rifts in the country, torn apart by systemic bloodletting.
Somalia, home to 10 million people, has lacked an effective central authority since the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Since then, more than 14 internationally-backed attempts to restore a functional government in the country have failed, compounding the misery that has been caused by numerous natural disasters.
