Mogadishu — Ethiopian armed forces in Mogadishu have indiscriminately opened gunfire on unarmed civilians killing three people on Tuesday witnesses told Shabelle.

Eyewitnesses confirmed to Shabelle that they saw the dead bodies killed by the soldiers in Hamar Bile area of Wardhigley district in Mogadishu.

It's yet unknown the motives behind the killing of the civilians by the Ethiopian troops.

Ethiopian troops intervened to prop up the feeble Somali government at the end of 2006 and eventually drove the Islamists from much of the country's southern and central regions, where they had established Sharia law.

Since then, the Islamists have killed numerous government officials and vowed to fight until the Ethiopians, whom they regard as occupiers, withdraw.

Somalia has lacked a functional government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous peace initiatives.