MOGADISHU, Somalia Apr 19 (Garowe Online) - An Ethiopian military transport truck exploded Thursday morning after it drove over a landmine near the town of Afgoye, 30km south of Mogadishu, witnesses reported.

The truck was completely destroyed in the explosion and witnesses said they saw the dead bodies of four soldiers removed from the wreckage, with an unknown number of casualties.

Residents who witnessed the explosion and its aftermath said Ethiopian soldiers opened fire in all directions in the panic following the explosion. No one was reported wounded in the subsequent gunfire.

The Ethiopian military in Somalia has not commented on the deadly mine explosion, but the incident on the main Mogadishu-to-Afgoye road happened as Ethiopian troops battled insurgents for the second day.

A spokesman for Mogadishu’s dominant Hawiye clan, Abdullahi Sheikh Hassan, has said that a truce reached last month between the clan leadership and Ethiopian generals in Mogadishu had collapsed.

“They [Ethiopians] have broken the agreement,” Sheikh Hassan said during a Thursday press conference.

Medical sources at three area hospitals said more than 12 people died, as insurgents in northern neighborhoods launched rockets and mortars against Ethiopian and Somali government soldiers.

More than 60 wounded people, most of them civilians, were admitted to already overcrowded hospitals. At least 7 people were killed during yesterday’s firefights.

Northern Mogadishu residents said the Ethiopians used tanks and other heavy weaponry against their enemies, who include clan militias drawn largely from the local Hawiye community.

Government troops and their Ethiopian allies have been accused of committing war crimes during four-day battles at the end of March. Witnesses reported today that the troops were responding to insurgent fire by indiscriminately bombarding neighborhoods suspected to be the source of the attacks.

Garowe Online News