Helicopter shot down as battles engulf Mogadishu

By Sahal Abdulle

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Rebels shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu on Friday and Ethiopia said its forces had killed 200 insurgents in a two-day joint offensive with Somali troops against Islamists and clan militia.

Aid workers said scores of civilians also died in the city's worst fighting in years. Shells crashed down and deafening tank fire shattered buildings as guerrillas replied with barrages of mortars, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

"Ethiopia has killed 200 armed remnants of the Islamic Courts Union and wounded many others," Ethiopia's Information Ministry said in a statement broadcast on national television.

Mogadishu residents cowered at home and reporters watched from rooftops earlier on Friday as two Ethiopian helicopters fired on a rebel stronghold before one was hit by a missile.

"Smoke billowed from the cabin and it turned towards the ocean," one witness, Swiss journalist Eugen Sorg, told Reuters. "It crashed at the south end of the airport runway."

Ugandan peacekeepers pulled two bodies from the wreckage.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply disturbed" by the sharp escalation in violence.

"He is particularly concerned about the use of air strikes and the introduction of tanks and heavy artillery into densely populated parts of the city," a spokesman said in a statement.