MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Unknown assailants fired a mortar on a square in Somalia’s capital Thursday, wounding eight civilians and prompting Ethiopian troops to shoot into the air to deter further attacks.

It was the latest attack in a city beset by spiraling violence since the Ethiopia-backed December ouster of the Islamic movement that had controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia. The Islamic movement, which residents say still has strong support in the capital, has vowed to wage an Iraq-style insurgency.

Ethiopian troops had been drawing water from a well some distance from Tarbunka square in southern Mogadishu when the attack occurred. The soldiers cordoned off the area and fired into the air, witness Farah Abdi Warsame told The Associated Press.

Volunteers took the wounded to the hospital, including one seriously injured with shrapnel in his abdomen. said Fatuma Hussein Abdi, a nurse. A day earlier, seven people were killed in separate incidents in the city, police and residents said.

A top Islamic leader, meanwhile, joined other moderate members of the movement in Yemen after spending weeks in protective custody in Kenya, according to qaadisiya.com, the Web site of Somalia’s Council of Islamic Courts.

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed will meet with members of the Executive Council of Islamic Courts before holding talks with Yemeni officials to discuss the situation in Somalia and how to force Ethiopian troops to leave the country, the Web site said.

Various donors have pressed the Somali government to reach out to moderate elements of the Islamic movement to stabilize Somalia. Some diplomats say Ahmed is important to such a development.

But on Tuesday, President Abdullahi Yusuf told the Yemeni News Agency he will not hold talks with Ahmed, saying he was part of the leadership responsible for Somalia’s destruction.

Also Thursday, Ethiopian troops began training 1,000 former fighters who had served under secular warlords and will be integrated into Somalia’s nascent security forces.

“We are just here to help Somalia and our help will be in the form of training troops,” said Ethiopian Maj. Demesh, who gave only one name, told the former militiamen. “We have come here to fight terrorists in the country who wanted to attack other countries.”

Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into anarchy.

A transitional government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help but struggled to assert control outside one city, Baidoa.

The Islamic movement had been credited with restoring order in areas it controlled, but some Somalis chafed at its fundamentalist version of Islam, and the U.S. accused the movement of harboring al-Qaida suspects.

On Thursday, Ethiopian and U.N. officials said an estimated 50,000 Somali refugees entered Ethiopia between April and January claiming they were fleeing the fighting.

“Now that the situation has changed in Somalia, we will ask them to go back, if they want, but we will not force them,” said Ayalew Aweke of the Ethiopian Administration of Refugee and Returnee Affairs.