MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Scores of residents fled their homes Thursday during a second day of fighting between Islamic insurgents and Somali and Ethiopian troops that killed four people and wounded six.

Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle told The Associated Press that the Somali government had gathered intelligence showing that a top leader of the ousted insurgents, Aden Hashi Ayro, was recently named the head of the al-Qaida cell in Somalia, and has been directing the fighting.

Jelle said that the government had reports that Ayro was in Mogadishu.

Counterterrorism experts believe Ayro, who is in his mid-30s, received al-Qaida training in Afghanistan. He has been linked by U.N. officials to the murders of 16 people, including BBC journalist Kate Peyton. Counterterrorism officials also believe he was involved in a plot – never carried out – to bring down an Ethiopian airliner.

Residents boarded minivans or taxis to move to safer parts of the capital, or leave it altogether. Poorer ones carried belongings on their heads and in plastic bags.

Unidentified gunmen threw a bomb at the main police station in the southern port town of Kismayo but missed, hitting a wall separating the station from a private home, said Mayor Ibrahim Mohamed Yusuf. The blast killed one woman and wounded another woman and her two children, Yusuf said.

In Mogadishu, insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine guns and government troops responded with artillery and machine gun fire, witnesses said.

Witnesses counted four bodies in different parts of the city and Dr. Ali Bile of Keysaney Hospital said his institution received six wounded.

Gunfire could be heard intermittently Thursday evening, but the fighting in northern and southern parts of the city seemed to be less fierce than battles a day earlier that killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 120.

Hundreds of government troops were deployed to reinforce troops who fought insurgents Wednesday, said Fathi Mohamed Aden, a clan elder who saw the fighting take place in his northern Mogadishu neighborhood.

Both sides then engaged in a fierce gunbattle, he said.

In a southern Mogadishu neighborhood, gunmen attacked government and Ethiopian troops based at the former defense ministry building, said Jamila Isaq Roble, a mother of six.

On Wednesday insurgents dragged the corpses of six soldiers – four Somalis and two of their Ethiopian allies – through the streets of Mogadishu and set the bodies on fire, drawing crowds who threw rocks and kicked the smoldering remains.

The scene was similar to one in Mogadishu in 1993 that grabbed the world’s attention when militiamen shot down a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter during an attempt to capture a warlord and dragged around dead American soldiers. The Clinton administration pulled out U.S. troops, and U.N. peacekeepers soon followed suit, leaving Somalia to years of anarchy.

“I lost two sons in 1993 when the U.S. troops fought battles with Somali militia and now I have lost the last one,” said 37-year old Shamsa Abdikadir Wehliye, whose son was killed in Wednesday’s fighting.

She spoke at Medina Hospital as she was tending to her 50-year old husband, who was injured by shrapnel.

Among the evacuees was a mother of seven who said she was forced to leave behind her husband and two of her children because they were too weak to travel. Hadija Mad Osman said her husband was injured by shrapnel when a mortar exploded near them, and the children had diarrhea.

“I have left my husband and two of my children lying in a makeshift house near the football stadium,” Osman said. “I do not know where I am going.”

Wednesday saw some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since the radical militia known as the Council of Islamic Courts was driven from the capital in December after six months in power. But the group has promised to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and mortar attacks pound the capital nearly every day.

The leader of the Council of Islamic Courts, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, told the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Somali service that the insurgents and residents of Mogadishu are justified in fighting the Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies, but denied he was involved in it.

Interior Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled said that the government is determined to restore law and order in Mogadishu within a week despite any resistance it meets.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing operation, said Wednesday’s offensive was focused on parts of the capital controlled by the Habr Gedir clan, which was a major supporter of the more radical elements of the Islamic courts and remains opposed to the government.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991. The current administration has failed to assert control throughout the country, and the African Union has deployed a small peacekeeping force to defend it.

But daily violence has continued in the capital, with civilians caught in the crossfire taking the brunt of the violence.