(SomaliNet) At least four civilians died when a remote-controlled roadside bomb tore into an Ethiopian army convoy in Somalia on Thursday wounding five soldiers, locals and a security source said. The attack is the latest in a wave of Iraq-style insurgent strikes rocking the Horn of Africa nation. “An Ethiopian truck was blown up,” resident Osman Adan said by telephone. “The Ethiopian troops immediately opened fire indiscriminately with heavy machine-guns.”
Seven locals were caught in the cross-fire, but local journalist Ali Dahir said he had been able to verify four civilian fatalities, Adan said. “Two seriously injured soldiers were being removed from the truck. There was a lot of blood at the scene,” Mr Dahir added. “Nobody knows whether the Ethiopian soldiers died or not.”
Witnesses said Ethiopian soldiers cordoned off the area after the blast and carried out door-to-door searches in nearby streets. The security source in Mogadishu said one Ethiopian truck was destroyed by an anti-tank mine set off by remote control – a new tactic being used by the insurgents.
Meanwhile, Nato allies are studying a request from the African Union to provide air transport for its troops in Somalia, an alliance official said today. “We are seeking military advice on how to respond to the request. There is an intention among allies to help,” said the official of an AU request he said Nato received in recent days.
The official said he understood the support would be similar to that provided to AU peacekeepers in Sudan’s Darfur region, where Nato planes have since 2005 helped troop reinforcements and rotations. The Nato official said he understood the AU wanted help “relatively quickly”.
At present the AU force is made up of just 1,600 Ugandans. Other African nations have been wary of sending more soldiers, especially after four Ugandan peacekeepers were killed two weeks ago by a roadside bomb targeting their convoy.