by Mustafa Haji Abdinur and Ali Musa Abdi
Ethiopian and Somali forces killed three civilians and wounded five others after a failed hand grenade attack, and police killed two civilians after two police officers were shot dead, witnesses said.
Meanwhile an Islamist website posted pictures of a man who allegedly carried out the suicide attack on the prime minister.
The grenade attack was the second failed strike Monday on Ethiopian-Somali troops in the northern district of Huriwa.
"Immediately after the grenade was thrown at the Ethiopian-Somali convoy, they opened heavy fire in the direction it came from," witness Ahmed Ismail told AFP.
It was unclear who carried out the attack but many civilians had been standing at a nearby bus stop and small roadside market, he said.
"The three died immediately after the troops opened fire and their bodies have been collected by local elders," said witness Abdullahi Daud.
Ethiopian and Somali forces were not immediately available for comment.
In southern Mogadishu, a gunman shot dead two policemen during an operation to disarm civilians in the Bakara market area, and police shot dead two civilians after the attack, witnesses said.
"A policeman was shot dead by a man who was armed with a pistol and minutes later another policemen tried to arrest the man and he killed him too," said witness Ahmed Nur Ali.
Police reinforcements arrived shortly after the attack and opened fire, killing two civilians, he said.
"I have seen the bodies of the two civilians carried on a wheelbarrow," said Bashir Mohamed, another witness.
Police sealed off the area and the attacker escaped, he added.
Government and United Nations officials, African Union peacekeeping troops and Ethiopian soldiers have been targeted in a growing number of Iraq-style homemade bomb and suicide attacks, mainly in the seaside capital.
An Islamist website on Monday posted a picture of a man who they claimed carried out the suicide car bomb attack on the prime minister's Mogadishu compound the previous day, killing six security guards.
The Al-Mujahid website, used in the past by fighters from the ousted Islamic Courts Union (ICU), said it would later provide further information and a video of the attack.
Prime Minister Gedi, whose interim government is struggling to control the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, blamed the attack on Al-Qaeda.
"The terrorists are still hiding in the country, particularly in Mogadishu, to carry out violent actions like this. We will crack down on them and we will no longer give them a chance to hide in the community," Gedi told journalists at his compound on Monday.
The attacks followed a deadly weekend assault in northeastern Somalia by security forces and a US warship against Islamist extremists with suspected links to Al-Qaeda.
Ethiopian troops helped Somali forces drive out the ICU at the start of the year and in March and April fought heavy battles with Islamist sympathisers and clan fighters on the streets of Mogadishu.
Somalia plunged into lawlessness with the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and more than a dozen attempts to restore central authority have since failed.
Source: AFP, June 04, 2007