Somalia's Transitional Federal Government is at war. Here's an article about the TFG seizing the local airport in Baidoa from local militias unaffiliated with the Islamic Courts Union.

The clash erupted after a group of police officers tried to leave the airport for training in Kenya, and the militia demanded they pay taxes.

According to the Reuters version, one of the local militiamen said:

"Policemen were firing at us and we were forced to return fire and that's when I was injured."

It seems very plausible that this was a surprise attack. The TFG is not powerful enough to achieve its goals through a threat of force (thus sparing lives), because this would give the local militias time to reinforce their positions and prevent the attack from happening.

Here's a quote that, if true, suggests that the TFG is very much at odds with the administration of the Bay region, of which Baidoa is the capital:

Many wounded militiamen said they had not been paid and were given the green light by local authorities to collect "taxes".

Somalinet's version meshes well with this claim and takes it a step further, describing how the incident has angered the local administration. (The first "they" in the second paragraph refers to the TFG policemen.)

Shortly after the incident, deputy chairman of the Bay region Shino Moalim condemned today the attack by the government police as an illegal and politically motivated action.

“Actually general Ali Madobe and his policemen have today attacked the militiamen in the airport of Baidoa who have really been in collaboration with the administration of the region where they committed killing and occupied the area without informing us and I see that is an aggressive action against the people in the region,” Shino said. “The resident militia were ambushed by police attackers and they were not alert of any attack’”

Were they were collecting legitimate airport fees?

Mr. Shino...denied some reports that say that the militia in the airport used to take illegal money from the airplanes as well as the passengers coming in and out of the airport, saying they were local militia who had been located in the airport by the administration in Baidoa.

News24 of South Africa adds a twist:

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

The same article quotes one Baidoa police official as saying that 12 people were killed, though a government spokesperson said that there were no deaths.

African News Dimension calls the vanquished group "Islamists" and "Islamic fighters," and their headline suggests that the "Islamists" fired the first shot.