Somalis say Ethiopian troops killed 17 civilians

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Islamist insurgents attacked two Ethiopian troop convoys, and the soldiers responded by turning on civilians and killing at least 17 of them in rural Somalia, witnesses said Thursday.

It was unclear how many Ethiopian soldiers and insurgents died in Wednesday's fighting.

In two other attacks, a roadside bomb killed three Somali soldiers, and an attack on a World Food Program convoy killed one of its drivers, police said.

On Thursday, witnesses say Islamist fighters seized the police headquarters in a bold attack on the government's stronghold in Mogadishu.

They say the insurgents have fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy submachine guns in fighting that killed two soldiers and two police officers. Relatives say two civilians were killed when stray bullets smashed into their home.

The insurgents abandoned the station after a couple of hours Thursday night, using guerrilla tactics in their fight to make Somalia an Islamic state.

Somalia's worst violence on Wednesday involved insurgents attacking an Ethiopian military convoy with rocket-propelled grenades.

"I saw two Ethiopian military vehicles burning and several soldiers underneath them, but I cannot confirm whether they were dead," Ahmedey Farah Hilowle told The Associated Press by telephone from his village, 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Belet Weyne, the provincial capital of central Hiran region.

The vehicles were hit by RPGs fired by heavily armed insurgents, he and other witnesses said.

Afterward, Ethiopian troops deployed nearby and opened fire on civilians, killing eight, including a woman who was collecting water from a well, said villager Abdisalan Muxsim.

Other witnesses said they found the bodies of six insurgents lying in nearby bush. But Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Issa Adow said only two were killed, including regional commander Amin Barqadle Daad of the Islamic Courts Union.

"We inflicted a great loss of lives on them [Ethiopians]and destroyed their vehicles, but in retaliation the enemy troops mercilessly killed civilians," Adow charged.

Also Wednesday, residents said Ethiopian troops killed nine civilians after a convoy was ambushed by insurgents between Yaqberiweyne and Belidogle, 65 miles (110 kilometers) south of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region.

"During the battle we ran away from our village to the bush. ... This morning we came back and we found the bodies of nine of our villagers," said Said Abukar Ganey.

International human rights groups have charged that Ethiopian troops are increasingly targeting civilians out of frustration at their failure to halt an insurgency that has adopted Iraqi-style tactics such as roadside bombs and occasional suicide attacks.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb hit a truck carrying Somali soldiers on Wednesday, killing three troopers and wounding six, military officer Madey Hassan Nur said by telephone. He said the explosion occurred just outside Baidoa, seat of the interim parliament about 150 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of Mogadishu, the capital.

"An explosion sent us into the air, when we fell back to the ground three of my colleagues were lying there dead and six others were screaming from their wounds," Nur said.

The U.N. World Food Program said militiamen demanding money opened fire Wednesday on a truck convoy carrying its food in central Somalia, killing one driver. The food was not looted.

The incident occurred when a convoy of 12 WFP-contracted trucks, loaded with food, was stopped by militiamen demanding money at an illegal checkpoint, 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Galkayo in Mudug region. A militiaman opened fire on the trucks, and a wounded driver later died in a hospital, WFP said. The 275-metric tons of WFP food aboard the trucks was not looted.

Ethiopia sent troops to neighboring Somalia in December 2006, to help keep in power a shaky, U.N.-backed government. The Ethiopians speedily drove out fighters for theIslamic Courts Union who had taken over much of central and southern Somalia, including Mogadishu.

But the Ethiopians have failed to oust the insurgents and remain in the country more than a year after they planned to withdraw.

Ethiopia does not publish its fatalities. But Ethiopian Foreign Affairs spokesman Wahide Belay told The Associated Press on Tuesday that hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers have died in Somalia. Last year, he said the fatalities were in the dozens.

Belay said about 3,000 troops are deployed in Somalia.

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