MOGADISHU, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five people have been killed and more than fourteen others wounded in Mogadishu after fierce skirmishes broke out between Somali government forces and insurgent fighters, witnesses said Wednesday.

    "Two people died after they were hit by stray bullets in our neighborhood and four others were severely wounded," Hussein Isse, an eyewitness in Wardigley district of Mogadishu where some of the fighting took place, told Xinhua.

    The fighting began after Islamist insurgent attacked government military bases around the presidential palace in Mogadishu with mortars and rocket propelled grenades while government forces responded with heavy artillery shells in and around Bakara market in the south of the restive Somali capital.

    Witnesses in Bakara market, the largest in Somalia, said that two more civilians were killed by the shrapnel while six others were injured.

    Somali government military spokesman confirmed that insurgent fighters attacked their positions in the early hours of the morning. He said that the fighters were repulsed back.

    Meanwhile, Sheik Muqtar Robow, spokesman for Al-shabaab Islamist fighters, claimed that his fighters "inflicted heavy losses" on Somali government troops. He did not elaborate. But he said that one of his fighters was "martyred" and four others wounded in the fighting.

    Speaking in a press conference by phone, Robow told reporters that his group would intensify their attacks on Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops during the holy month of Ramadan which started three days ago

    "We will increase our attacks on the enemy of Allah during this holy month because we are fighting in the way of Allah and we will go to heaven should anyone of us die," Robow said.

    The Al-Shabaab Islamist movement has been opposed to the agreement signed between the Somali government and a faction of the opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) in Djibouti in June.