( AP ) - The body of an Ethiopian soldier killed in clashes Thursday between troops and Islamic insurgents was dragged through the street and pelted with stones in the Somali capital.
The soldier was one of two Ethiopian troops and a Somali killed in heavy fighting that started when hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers from two nearby military bases began patrols in the north eastern Huriwa neighborhood, said Seynab Sheikh, a resident.
Ethiopians soldiers have been in Somalia since helping the shaky U.N.-backed government oust an Islamic militia from power in the capital and much of the country's south in December. Fighting between Ethiopian troops and Islamic insurgents have killed thousands of Somalis this year.
"God is great! Death is for the invaders and their stooges," chanted hundreds of protesters, mainly women and children. "Down with the unbelievers and down with the puppet regime."
It was unclear what happened to the body of the other soldier killed Thursday.
The scene recalled images in 1993 of Somali gunmen dragging the bodies of U.S. soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu after clan militiamen shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 American servicemen. Former President Clinton ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia, and a U.N. peacekeeping operation was scaled back and eventually abandoned in 1995. The fighting was portrayed in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."
The Horn of Africa nation has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on each other.
Doctors said seven wounded from Thursday's fighting were admitted to hospitals.
The clashes subsided after the Ethiopians withdrew from the residential neighborhood, seen as a hotbed of supporters of Islamic insurgents.
On Wednesday, the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said the fighting had gotten so bad that civilians who were shot or hit by shrapnel at night frequently bleed to death because the violence cuts them off from the hospitals.