A suicide bomber killed at least 13 people on Saturday outside a restaurant popular with Ethiopian and Somali troops in the town of Baladweyne in central Somalia, local officials said.
More than 10 people were also wounded in the explosion near a military base, local legislator Dahir Amin Jesow told Reuters by telephone from Baladweyne.
Reports said the bomber had strapped explosives around his chest.
“A man with an explosives jacket entered unexpectedly in the tea shop where soldiers and civilians sat and blew himself up,’’ said local elder Ahmed Nur, speaking from the scene of the blast.
“I can see the bodies of several soldiers being carried out, but I cannot make out whether they were dead or injured.’’
However, no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ethiopian troops have been fighting Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia for much of the past decade.
It waged an ill-fated war in Somalia in 2006 to 2009 and sent troops across the border again in 2011.