Ethiopian offensive spurs deadly violence in Somali capital

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Seven Ethiopian soldiers were killed on Thursday in Mogadishu, and two of their bodies dragged through the streets amid heavy fighting sparked by an Ethiopian offensive against insurgents.

Dozens of men and women pulled the bodies of two soldiers in the street, shouting "We will kill the Ethiopian troops", while five other bodies in Ethiopian uniforms lay on the ground in the southern district of Shirkole.

They were the first Ethiopian soldiers reported killed in Mogadishu since Somali-Ethiopian troops drove out Islamists from the capital three months ago.

The scenes echoed deadly violence last week, when angry crowds burned the bodies of two dead Somali soldiers and dragged another through the streets.

In the early 1990s similar treatment was meted out to US troops during a failed UN-backed peace operation in Somalia.

Loudspeakers on Thursday transmitted calls for residents to come out and fight the Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's interim government, after the Ethiopians launched a heavy offensive in tanks and helicopters.