MOGADISHU, Sept 4, 2006 (AFP) - At least 12 people were killed and 11 wounded on Monday when Somali police clashed with gunmen for control of the airport in the government seat of Baidoa, officials and witnesses said.

The fighting erupted as members of the weak transitional administration met with Somalia's powerful Islamic movement in Sudan but was unrelated to the peace talks, although it underscored instability in the lawless nation.

Police said they had moved on the Baidoa airport to evict militia fighters who had set up shop there, imposing taxes and recruiting cronies into their ranks after having been dismissed as airport security workers.

"Twelve people have been killed, seven militiamen and five from the government security," Baidoa police official Omar Aden Abdulle told AFP from the town about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu.

Baidoa resident Mohamed Abukar said bodies of the dead were lying at the airport as police took up positions around the facility in the aftermath of the gunbattle.

"I saw seven bodies at the airport," he told AFP. "All of them were uniformed, but I couldn't tell if they were from the government or the gunmen."

Witnesses said police were evacuating their casualities from the airport and authorities were unwilling to discuss specific details of the incident.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Mohamed Nur Dinari said police had been ordered to seize control of the airport and that casualty figures from the firefight had been far lower than reported by others.

"They moved to the airport to stop activities that were undermining the smooth running of the facility," he told AFP, maintaining ther had been no deaths and only three injuries from the clash.

"As of now, the airport is in the hands of the government," Dinari said.

Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the Horn of Africa nation into chaos.

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