At least 12 killed in clashes in Somali capital

Somali men crowd around the body of an Ethiopian soldier

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Clashes between Ethiopian forces backing the Somali government and Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu on Thursday left five Ethiopian troops and seven civilians dead.

Witnesses described an angry mob dragging the body of an Ethiopian through the streets from northern Suqaholaha district where he and a second soldier had been killed in an initial clash with insurgents.

More than 100 civilians stepped and spat on the scarred body -- his feet were tied with telephone wire -- as they dragged it for several kilometres (miles) along the pot-holed roads of the capital.

"We will fight against the Ethiopian colonisers and we will kill them like this," the mob shouted angrily. "Down with Ethiopia, Allah is Great," they chanted.

Hundreds more Ethiopian troops then descended on the southern district of Barubah to collect the body, sparking much heavier fighting with the Islamist insurgents.

Residents said the bodies of three more Ethiopian soldiers were found after the heavy exchanges of machine-gun fire, rockets and tank shells.

"The Ethiopians were lying dead near the junction," said one, Abdullahi Mohamed Jama.

Six civilians "escaping the fighting" were also killed when a tank shell hit a kiosk in which they were hiding, another resident, Muhamoud Gobe, told AFP.

Another civilian was found dead after the earlier fighting in Barubah.

The clashes came nearly a week after insurgents paraded three Ethiopian bodies through the streets of Mogadishu, similar to scenes in 1993 when the dead were US special forces taking part in a doomed operation.

Ethiopian troops have been intensifying their efforts against Islamist rebels in recent days in a bid to break the back of an insurgency that has plagued efforts to stabilise the transitional government for months.

The Ethiopian army came to the rescue of the embattled Somali government last year to help it oust an Islamist militia that briefly controlled large parts of the country and sought to impose Islamic law.

The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was defeated earlier this year, but remnants and allied tribes have since waged a guerrilla war targetting government officials, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers.

Eritrean-exiled ICU chief Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed vowed Thursday that the Islamist insurgents would dig in until Addis Ababa withdrew its troops.

"It is our belief that every individual in Somalia has to participate in the resistance and the defeat of the Ethiopian occupation," Sheikh Sharif told AFP in Asmara.

Bloody clan feuds in Somalia following the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre escalated into a civil war which continues to defy every peace initiative.

Reuters