Mogadishu - Three foreigners were killed in Somalia after insurgents attacked the central town of Beledweyne late Sunday, residents said Monday.

The three foreigners, a Briton and two Kenyans, were teachers in the town, some 300 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu.

"They killed a British woman and two Kenyan teachers. They were killed by the Islamist insurgents and we don't know the motive behind the killings," said Muktar Ibrahim, a resident who lives near the school.

Witnesses in Beledweyne said the Islamist fighters did not meet any resistance from government troops because they abandoned the town when the Islamists stormed it.

"The area is empty now. There is no administration at this moment while tension remains high," said Robleh Mohamed, a local elder.

Somalia was plunged into lawlessness after the 1991 toppling of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre and has had no effective central rule since. Chaos and violence rule throughout the country with an especially fierce insurgency ongoing in Mogadishu.

Three employees of the French medical charity Doctors Without Borders were killed in a bombing early this year, including a French and Kenyan national, an act the agency says was targeted. (dpa)