one person dead in weapon search in somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia: Ethiopian troops opened fire, killing one civilian, after gunmen threw hand grenades at the soldiers Monday as they conducted a house-to-house search for weapons, witnesses said.

Somalia's fragile government has tried a voluntary program and a forceful one to get arms out of the hands of civilians without much success in a city that has known anarchy and violence in the past 16 years.

"Ethiopians opened fire. I saw one dead woman who had a small shop in the area," said Mogadishu resident Mohamed Osman Abdi.

Increasingly, the capital seems seized by the Iraq-style guerrilla war. Islamic militants vowed to wage an insurgency when they were toppled in December by Ethiopian troops supporting the government.

Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. The government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but has struggled to assert any real control.

Earlier Monday, the weapons search had brought the soldiers to the compound of HornAfrik Radio station that in past has drawn the ire of Somalia's government, station officials said.

"They checked weapons everywhere in our compound and left after they finished the operation," said Zeinab Abukar, a HornAfrik presenter.

Mahad Mohamed Ilmi, a HornAfrik editor, said that the soldiers searched in the studio, looking under the desks as a journalist was on air.

Abukar said that the soldiers did not interrupt any programs or any other operations of HornAfrik. This year, the government has ordered HornAfrik and two other radio stations briefly shut twice, in June and January.