Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Ethiopians attacked in Mogadishu

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 8, 2007

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Gunmen attacked Ethiopian troops supporting the Somali government Sunday, witnesses said, in the second straight day of violence in a city struggling to emerge from more than a decade of chaos.

Farah Abdi Hussein, who witnessed the attack, said gunmen launched grenades at Ethiopians about 2 1/2 miles from the airport. One Somali soldier was wounded, a Somali military official said.

The unrest comes at a precarious time for Somalia's transitional administration, which is trying to assert some control for the first time in a capital that has seen little more than chaos in the 15 years since clan warlords toppled a dictatorship and then turned on each other.

The government, backed by Ethiopia's military, drove out a radical Islamic militia last week. But many in predominantly Muslim Somalia resent the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population and has fought two wars with Somalia.

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters took to the streets, burning tires and smashing car windows while denouncing the presence of Ethiopian forces and shouting defiance at the Somali government's call for disarming Mogadishu. Two people died, including a 13-year-old boy.

On Sunday, a similar protest took place about 215 miles away in Belet Weyne, after Ethiopian troops there detained a Somali military commander who refused to hand over an Islamic militiaman, witnesses said. The protest turned violent, killing a 20-year-old civilian, witness Abdi Nor Salah Gedi said.

It was not clear who shot the man or the teenager killed Saturday.

Clan elders held emergency meetings Sunday, and hundreds of Somali troops patrolled Mogadishu. The African Union has begun planning for peacekeepers, and Uganda has promised at least 1,000 troops.

.

[Last modified January 8, 2007, 05:39:53]