A government security official said fighters from the Al-Shabaab movement attacked positions in northern districts of the capital.

“The terrorists attacked our positions around Shibis and Manbolyo. We defeated them, they lost several men and two of our soldiers were injured,” Adan Yusuf told AFP.

He had no information on any civilian casualties but medical sources and witnesses said three people were killed in the cross-fire and at least five others wounded.

“I saw the bodies of three civilians, including a woman. Two of them were killed by stray bullets and another when a mortar shell crashed into his house,” said Adan Nahar, a local resident.

Ali Muse, the head of ambulance services in Mogadishu, said his teams had picked up five wounded civilians from the Shibis neighborhood.

In a separate incident that occurred overnight in a southern Mogadishu neighborhood, two alleged insurgents were gunned down by fighters belonging to the anti-Shabaab Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa. “We arrested them overnight after they got lost and apparently mistook our position for one of theirs and we killed them,” an Ahlu Sunna official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Several residents said they had seen the bodies of the two fighters lying on a street early on Friday.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting between insurgents and the embattled transitional government, which controls a tiny perimeter in Mogadishu and is protected by African Union troops.

In another development, Al-Shabaab on Friday warned neighboring Kenya not to interfere in the Somali conflict.