Residents of the Hammer Jadiidi district had just finished a day of fasting when the first shots rang out. Witnesses said the ensuing firefight, involving American troops, left three people dead and two wounded.
The soldiers were accused of shooting indiscriminately in the Friday night incident and fleeing without helping the injured, including a 12-year-old boy who was hit twice in the back."They came to our country and said they would save us. Now they are killing us," said Abdi Hassan, a witness who took an Associated Press reporter and photographer to see the blood-stained sidewalk and pock-marked buildings.
But U.S. officials defended the patrol, saying one of their two vehicles was hit several times.
"The patrol took fire. The patrol returned fire. The patrol got out of there," said Air Force Capt. Joe Davis, a U.S. military spokesman. "If any Somalis got killed, they're the ones who shot first."
The shooting in the Hammer Jadiidi neighborhood was the most serious in two days of sporadic violence.
Earlier, military officials in Paris said two French soldiers were killed in a road accident between Mogadishu and Baidoa. They were the first Frenchmen to die in the international military intervention in Somalia.