Peacekeepers 'must leave Somalia'

The AU's Burundian and Ugandan troops went into Somalia in 2007

Eritrea has called for all foreign troops to leave Somalia, amid a fresh attack by insurgents against African Union (AU) peacekeepers.

The Eritrean foreign ministry said external interference must stop if national reconciliation is to be achieved in Somalia.

It came as six people died in a morning fire-fight in the capital Mogadishu, when rebels targeted a barracks.

Meanwhile Burundi vowed to send more troops to the AU mission in Somalia.

Burundian Defence Minister Lt Gen Germain Niyoyankana told Radio France Internationale they planned to reinforce their presence with a battalion of 850 men as soon as possible.

The minister said his government would not be deterred by Sunday's suicide attack - claimed by the radical al-Shabab group - on a barracks in Mogadishu which left 11 Burundian peacekeepers dead.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says civilians, as usual, bore the brunt of the latest fighting on Tuesday morning, during which mortar and heavy machine gun fire was exchanged for about 40 minutes.

As well as the six deaths, 15 people were wounded when insurgents targeted a base for hundreds of AU troops and soldiers from the fragile transitional government in the Hodan district, south of the capital.

'End invasion'

No-one has yet claimed responsibility, says our correspondent, but suspicion has fallen on al-Shabab and the Islamic Party, a coalition of four insurgent Islamist groups.

Al-Shabab vowed to focus attacks on the AU after Ethiopian troops left

Meanwhile the Eritrean foreign ministry said in its statement: "Putting an end to invasion and external interference is a precondition for the realisation of the Somali people's aspirations to reconstitute their nation.

"It is equally imperative to get rid of any force deployed in Somalia under the pretext of 'peacekeeping mission'."

Several Somali Islamist groups have operated out of Eritrea since they were ousted from Mogadishu after Ethiopian troops went in just over two years ago.

The AU's 3,400-force of Burundian and Ugandan peacekeepers - deployed since 2007 - are now the only foreign troops in the Somali capital.

Ethiopian troops, which had been in the country since 2006 to support Somalia's government, pulled out at the end of January.

A UN-brokered peace deal between Somalia's transitional government and a moderate Islamist opposition group saw Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed elected president in January.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.

Some three million people - half the population - need food aid after years of fighting.