Ethiopian troops in Somalia kill 5 passers-by after blast
May 30, 2007 (MOGADISHU) — Ethiopian troops opened fire at passers-by Wednesday, killing five of them and injuring three others, after a land mine exploded as their convoy passed through the center of a western Somali town, police and witnesses said.
This is the first time a convoy of the Ethiopian army, which is backing Somalia’s fragile government against radical Islamic insurgents, has been attacked outside the capital, Mogadishu, where Ethiopian trucks have been frequently targeted in similar explosions.
A remote-controlled land mine detonated in the town of Belet Weyne as the last vehicle in the convoy, a water tanker, passed. “Then the Ethiopians opened fire on civilians,” police Col. Yusuf Aden said.
“Five people, all of them passers-by, were killed and three others were wounded,” Aden told The Associated Press by telephone from Belet Weyne, 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of Mogadishu.
The explosion rocked the town center, and huge plumes of smoke rose into the sky, said Ali Iid, a witness. The Ethiopian soldiers fired in all directions, then controlled movement in the area of the blast for 10 minutes before driving off, Iid told the AP by telephone.
“I saw five people lying in the street, including a woman,” he said.
Somalia hasn’t had an effective central government since 1991, when warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another. A transitional government formed with U.N. backing in 2004 has struggled to survive, and was sidelined by a radical Islamic group until Ethiopia’s military intervened Dec. 24 and turned the tide.
But insurgents linked to the Islamic group, known as the Council of Islamic Courts, have launched an Iraq-style guerrilla war, saying the government is allowing Ethiopia to “occupy” the country. The U.S. has long accused the group of having ties to al-Qaida, which the council denies.
Last month, the government declared victory in Mogadishu over the insurgents, who want Somalia to become an Islamic state. Battles in the Somali capital killed at least 1,670 people between March 12 and April 26. Months of violence drove about a fifth of Mogadishu’s 2 million residents to flee for safety since February.
(AP)