Wednesday , May 30, 2007  By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Ethiopian troops shot and killed five bystanders Wednesday after a land mine exploded as their convoy passed through the center of a western Somali town, police said.

A remote-controlled land mine detonated in the town of Belet Weyne as the last vehicle in the convoy, a water tanker, passed.

“Then the Ethiopians opened fire on civilians,” police Col. Yusuf Aden told The Associated Press by telephone from Belet Weyne, 180 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu. “Five people, all of them passers-by, were killed and three others were wounded.”

It was the first time an Ethiopian army convoy has been attacked outside the capital, where Ethiopian trucks have been frequently targeted. The Ethiopian troops are backing Somalia’s fragile government against radical Islamic insurgents.

The explosion rocked the town center, and huge plumes of smoke rose into the sky, said Ali Iid, a witness. The Ethiopian soldiers fired in all directions, then controlled movement at the site for 10 minutes before driving off, Iid told the AP by telephone.

“I saw five people lying in the street, including a woman,” he said.

Somalia’s U.N.-backed transitional government was sidelined by a radical Islamic group until Ethiopia’s military intervened in December and turned the tide.

Insurgents linked to the Islamic group have vowed to wage an Iraq-style guerrilla war, saying the government is allowing Ethiopia to occupy the country.

The government claimed victory over the insurgents last month after battles in Mogadishu that killed at least 1,670 people and drove a fifth of the city’s 2 million residents to flee.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991, when warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.