MOGADISHU, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - Three Somali civilians were killed and four other people wounded Thursday in the second night of a tough police crackdown against Mogadishu's Islamist-led insurgency, witnesses told AFP.

Eyewitness Ali Mohammed Anwar said an elderly man and a woman were killed when a police patrol came under grenade attack near the capital's Salama mosque.

"I saw one of the policemen open fire, killing an old man holding a bag in his hand," he said. "The woman was hit by shrapnel from the grenade blast and was then run over by a bus as she lay on the ground."

Another civilian was killed by Somali security forces in Mogadishu's Holgawad neighbourhood as he tried to cross a heavily-guarded street late at night.

Four other Mogadishu residents were wounded during heavy overnight clashes between insurgents and Somali government forces in southern Mogadishu, security sources and witnesses said.

Somali security launched a wide crackdown earlier this week aimed at flushing out insurgents from a few pockets in the capital that still escape government control.

Somalia's transitional government has blamed the violence on an Islamist militia which briefly controlled large parts of the country before being ousted earlier this year with the help of Ethiopian troops.

The latest violence also comes as some 400 Somali opposition figures, including the top leaders of the Islamic Courts Union, kicked off a congress in Asmara aimed at forming a united front against Ethiopian occupation.

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