Somali Islamists say at war against Ethiopia

reuters

BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - Somalia's Islamists are at war against Ethiopia not the government, a hard-line Islamist leader said on Thursday, as fighting raged for a third day between his forces and pro-government troops.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who was speaking to Reuters by telephone, also accused Ethiopia of attacking the Islamists in southern Somalia.

Three days of fighting with rockets, artillery and machineguns have increased fears of a devastating Horn of Africa war that could suck in rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea, who diplomats say are conducting a proxy war there.

The most sustained combat so far for control of a nation in anarchy since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, follows two months of increasingly violent skirmishes along a frontline snaking across Somalia.

Aweys's declaration came hours after he called the fighting around the government's encircled stronghold, Baidoa, "a small incident" and a top European Union envoy said the two sides had agreed to stop fighting and resume peace talks.

Thursday's shelling seemed to scuttle the shuttle diplomacy mission by EU aid chief Louis Michel, who flew into Baidoa and later to Mogadishu to try to push the two sides back to the bargaining table.

"The Somali government and the Islamists do not have heavy artillery pieces -- that shows Ethiopia is at war with us," said Aweys, whom Washington says has links to al Qaeda. "If we are attacked we are not going to sit back."

The Somali government had no immediate comment.

ETHIOPIA DENIAL

Ethiopian Information Ministry spokesman Zemedhun Tekele again denied there were any Ethiopian combat troops in Somalia, despite witness reports they have fought in the latest battles.

"These are baseless allegations which Aweys has been saying all along to mislead international public opinion," he said.

Military experts say Ethiopia has sent 15,000-20,000 troops into Somalia, while Eritrea has sent about 2,000 to back the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC).

Asmara denies any involvement and Addis Ababa says it has only a few hundred military trainers in Somalia but has vowed to crush any attack against them.

The fighting started late on Tuesday, the deadline the SICC had given Ethiopian troops protecting the government to leave the country or face holy war.

The latest round of clashes started early on Thursday near Dinsoor, 100 km (62 miles) southwest of Baidoa.

Dinsoor store owner Dayow Hassan told Reuters the rocket, mortar and artillery fire appeared to be moving south, away from Baidoa toward SICC positions.

"I'm hearing heavy artillery shelling, and it sounds like it's coming closer and closer to us," he said by telephone.

Witnesses in Baidoa said an Ethiopian helicopter had flown out of the city on Thursday, and an unmarked C-130 airplane believed to be flying surveillance runs circled the dusty trading post that is the government's only safe ground.

In Mogadishu, a Reuters witness saw a dozen trucks load more than 100 troops and head toward the front.

Troops of the SICC, which controls most of southern Somalia by military might and the strict use of sharia law, and the fragile, Western-backed government have been fighting near Baidoa since late on Tuesday.

No independent casualty figures were available. Government officials said their soldiers had killed hundreds of Islamists, but made no mention of their own casualties.

Islamist deputy spokesman Sheikh Ibrahim Shukri said the Islamists had killed "70 plus, mostly Ethiopians" and had only seven killed and 22 wounded in Wednesday's fighting.