Somali Shebab rebels show dozens of dead AU peacekeepers

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels displayed "over 70" dead bodies outside Mogadishu Thursday, that they claimed were African Union peacekeepers killed in battle. "We have killed more than 70 of the enemy soldiers today...We have inflicted heavy losses on them and you can see their dead bodies," Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said, displaying the bodies in the dust to reporters. Photographs show long lines of at least 20 bodies dressed in military uniform laid out in the sand, surrounded by a crowd with their faces covered. Witnesses confirmed that the dead bodies were displayed in the extremist Shebab-controlled Alamada area, some 18 kilometres (11 miles) outside the war-torn capital late Thursday, and that the bodies were not Somalis. "I have seen the largest number of soldiers killed in a battle, I have counted 63 Burundian soldiers, all of them dead, the Shebab brought them on trucks to Alamada," Hasan Yunus, a witness said. "Some of the dead bodies were dragged along by angry residents -- I could not count them exactly, but there were more than 60," said Ahmed Jama, another witness. Heavy fighting broke out before dawn in Mogadishu as AU-backed Somali forces advanced on holdout Islamist Shebab positions, officials and witnesses said. The fighting was centered in the northwest Deynile suburb, a remaining pocket still held by the Al-Qaeda linked militants in war-torn Mogadishu, which borders the rebel-held Afgoye, the world's largest camp for displaced people.