"Seven people were killed, including two of my brothers, when angry Ethiopian soldiers indiscriminately opened fire after their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb," Mohamoud Aden, a resident, told Xinhua.

The Ethiopian troops and Somali government forces cordoned off the area and prevented residents and journalists from going in or out of the area. The troops also arrested a number of passers-by whom they suspected of planting the bomb.

"I was standing not very far from where the bomb went off and I saw the dead bodies of three Ethiopian troops," said a resident who asked for anonymity. "I could also see some wounded soldiers then the Ethiopians started shooting at people."

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack but Somali government officials and Ethiopian forces accuse insurgent groups of being behind the resent upsurge of attacks targeting Somali government officials and foreign forces in the country.

Hussien Mohamed Mohamoud, the presidential spokesman, escaped an attempt on his life by unknown gunmen Monday after he was shot twice as he was driving in a street in Mogadishu. He was rushed to a hospital run by African Union (AU) forces and was in stable condition.

There has been an upsurge of violence since the Somali government announced the postponement of the national reconciliation conference from June 14 to mid July.

Somali has been without a central government since the overthrow of late ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991 when the country plunged into chaos until the formation of the current transitional federal government in Nairobi in 2004 as a result of the reconciliation conference there.