Shelling and artillery fire shook northern Mogadishu for the seventh day today as fighting between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and Islamist gunmen continued.
The government says the offensive, which has killed hundreds, will go on until it wipes out an insurgency frustrating its bid to restore central rule in the Horn of Africa country for the first time in 16 years.
As a suicide bomber attacked Ethiopian troops on the outskirts, terrified Mogadishu residents said neither side was gaining much ground in a battle for one small neighbourhood, an Islamist stronghold of bomb-shattered buildings.
The United States, which has given tacit backing to Ethiopia's involvement in Somalia, has urged all sides to reach a ceasefire, expressing concern over a growing humanitarian crisis.
The most sustained fighting in Mogadishu since the Somali-Ethiopian force defeated rival Islamists over the New Year has killed 293 people, local officials said.
Bodies lie rotting in the streets, and the number of government troops and Ethiopian soldiers killed is not known.
Nearly half a million people have fled Mogadishu, and thousands are sleeping under trees or in the open in surrounding towns and villages. The United Nations has warned of a looming catastrophe with disease rife among the population.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi says his interim government is determined to crush fighters he says are linked to al-Qaeda.
Residents say the violence has drawn in hundreds of militia from Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan, which opposes the role of Christian-led Ethiopian forces in Somalia.