Conflict in Somalia killed 6,501 civilians in the capital Mogadishu in 2007 and wounded 8,516 more, a local human rights group said on Monday.

The Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization said it had recorded 1.5 million people uprooted from homes in the city during a year that began with the toppling of the Islamist movement.

The group's chairman, Sudan Ali Ahmed, blamed Ethiopian forces supporting the interim Somali government for many of the civilian deaths. Residents are often caught in the crossfire as Ethiopian soldiers battle Islamist fighters.

"The international community must intervene in Somali affairs to force the Ethiopians to get out. At the same time they must bring a joint international peacekeeping force to secure the country," Ahmed told a news conference.

He said he believed the United States was funding Ethiopia to keep its troops in Somalia, and must take some of the blame.

The Horn of Africa nation has been mired in lawlessness since warlords ousted dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991. The transitional government is the country's 14th attempt at restoring central government since then.

In the latest violence, a mortar strike killed eight members of a family at a refugee camp north of Mogadishu on Sunday. Fighters also attacked troops in the south of the city and Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers at a strategic junction.

Captain Paddy Anlunda, a spokesman for African Union peacekeeping force, said no one was hurt in that clash.

On Monday, a senior Islamist commander -- Muktar Ali Robow -- told local Shabelle radio that his gunmen had launched the attacks on the Ethiopian soldiers and African peacekeepers.

"Mujahideen al-shabab fighters carried out their jihaad on the Ethiopian and Ugandan troops who invaded our country," he said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location.

"We have done great harm to them and we will continue fighting the foreign forces in our country. We call on the Ugandans and Ethiopians to go back home."

He said his militiamen were not responsible for the mortar attack on the refugee camp that killed the family.

"It was an Ethiopian shell that killed them," Robow said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Residents fleeing from clashes between Ethiopian troops and Islamist fighters in the capital Mogadishu.

Reuters