FACTBOX-Somalia, a country torn apart

Dec 31 (Reuters) - Conflict in Somalia killed more than 6,500 civilians in the capital Mogadishu in 2007, a local human rights group said on Monday.

Here are some details of the violent situation in Somalia over the last two years.

* ISLAMIST RULE:

-- In June 2006, after winning a bloody three-month battle against U.S.-backed warlords, Islamist militia calling themselves the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) seized Mogadishu. Washington accused the SICC of al Qaeda links.

-- Taming the capital has been the holy grail for every attempt at government since 1991 and only the Islamists have succeeded, by imposing what critics called a harsh version of Islamic law.

-- They further spread their control to most of south Somalia and advanced on the government's base in Baidoa.

* ISLAMIST RETREAT:

-- With tacit U.S. approval, Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia sent in troops to prop up the government and defend against an impending Islamist attack on Baidoa, which came in December.

-- The better-armed Ethiopian and Somali force advanced rapidly and ran the Islamists all the way to Somalia's southern tip. Mogadishu fell to the government in the last days of December.

* A NEW GOVERNMENT:

-- The first meeting of the country's parliament on home soil took place in Baidoa in February 2006, nearly two years after it was formed in the safety of neighbouring Kenya.

-- Lawmakers elected Ethiopian-backed warlord Abdullahi Yusuf as president and Ali Mohamed Gedi as prime minister to run the 14th attempt at government in Somalia since warlords ousted the last president, dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, in 1991.

-- Prime Minister Ali Mohamad Gedi entered Mogadishu at the end of 2006, just a day after the Islamists fled. President Yusuf entered the Somali capital in January 2007 for the first time since taking office.

-- However Gedi and Yusuf, who both ascended to power via Ethiopian manoeuvring, feuded. A truce since the last no-confidence vote in 2006 shattered earlier this year when they backed rival concerns looking for oil exploration rights. Gedi resigned on Oct 29.

* DEATH ON THE STREETS:

-- Two rounds of fighting between Ethiopian-Somali troops and Islamist insurgents sent residents fleeing the city in droves in early 2007 and killed at least 1,300 people, mainly civilians.

-- The African Union called for a peacekeeping force of 8,000 to be dispatched to Somalia. But only Uganda responded immediately with 1,600 troops.

-- In August the UNHCR said some 125,000 of the 400,000 civilians who fled the capital earlier in 2007 because of the violence had returned, partly because conditions outside were also very dangerous.

-- Full-scale conflict has given way to almost daily attacks. The Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation said it had recorded 1.5 million people uprooted from homes in the capital during the year as well as the 6,501 civilians killed. (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

SOURCE: Reuters, December 31, 2007