Clashes kill 46 in Somalia, new security boss named

Clashes in central Somalia and the capital have killed at least 46 people, officials and peace groups said on Thursday, while a newly-appointed security minister pledged to build strong national security forces. Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) said it was investigating a mystery illness that had killed three Burundian peacekeepers based in Somalia. Eighteen more were in a Kenyan hospital with the same symptoms, an AU official said. Neither insurgents nor the interim government and its allies have been able to gain the upper hand in sporadic fighting in central Somalia and the sea-side capital Mogadishu. A two-year insurgency against Somalia's western-backed government has killed some 18,000 people and displaced a million more in a nation that has been without central rule since 1991. The government is hemmed into a few blocks of the capital.