Ethiopia says troops are on Somalia’s border

June 17, 2006 (JOWHAR, Somalia) — The leader of the Somali Islamist group that captured the capital this week said 300 Ethiopian troops had crossed into the country on Saturday, but an Ethiopian official said his country’s troops were at the border and had not crossed it.

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, said Ethiopian troops entered Somalia through the border town of Dolow in the southwestern region of Gedo at 8 a.m. (0500GMT).

“We want the whole world to know what’s going on,” Ahmed told journalists. “Ethiopia has crossed our borders and are heading for us. They are supporting the transitional federal government.”

In recent days, Ethiopian troops have been crossing into Somali border towns and leaving, Ahmed said.

“They have deployed a lot of soldiers around the border towns, which is why we have been saying that Ethiopia is going to send in troops to Somalia,” the cleric said.

Ahmed’s translator initially said the chairman had accused the United States of encouraging an Ethiopian intervention, but Ahmed later said that was a mistranslation and he had not made such an accusation.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Bereket Simon, an adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said Ethiopian troops had not entered Somalia.

“Ethiopia has a right to monitor its border,” Bereket told The Associated Press. He gave no further details.

It was the first offical statement by an Ethiopian official about rumors there were Ethiopian troops at the border.

The Islamic Courts Union is the group behind the militiamen that have swept across southern Somalia installing clan-based, religiously oriented municipal administrations.

It captured Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on June 6 after months of on-and-off fighting with an alliance of U.S.-backed secular warlords and now controls most of southern Somalia.

More than 330 people died in the fighting, most of them civilians.

The Islamic group, accused by the United States of harboring al-Qaida, portrays itself as free of links to Somalia’s past turmoil and capable of bringing order and unity. But the future of a country accustomed to moderate Islam would be uncertain under hard-line Islamic rulers.

Ahmed denied on Saturday that any foreigners were involved in the Islamic courts or that any one in the courts had ties to al-Qaida.

Ethiopia has intervened in Somalia in the past to prevent Islamic extremists from taking power.

Ethiopians were also key power brokers in forming President Abdullahi Yusuf’s transitional Somalia government in 2004. Yusuf was their preferred candidate for president. Yusuf, himself a former warlord, had asked for Ethiopian troops to back up his government in 2004.

In a statement Saturday, Yusuf said he was willing to hold talks with the Islamic Courts Union if they agree to mediation by Yemen.

He said they must stop their advance and agree not to enter any more towns than they have already and they must recognize the legitimacy of the government and the constitution.

Ahmed said that his group was ready to hold talks with what he described as the “illegitimate government,” but he would not agree to any conditions.

He denied the Islamic courts had any plans to advance on Baidoa, the seat of Yusuf’s government. Ahmed said that, however, if there were popular uprisings where the people asked for the help of the Islamic courts, the courts would provide assistance.

He said he and fellow Islamic court leaders could not understand why the U.S. assisted the warlords, adding that he thought there were bad and good people in the U.S. government. The bad ones backed the warlords, Ahmed said.

An Islamic Courts Union spokesman, meanwhile, said the last two main warlords who lost the Somali capital to the militia fled the country on board a U.S. warship on Saturday.

But the U.S. Naval 5th Fleet, which patrols international waters off Somalia and is based in Bahrain, said it had no reports that any of its ships had picked them up.

Abdi Rahman Osman, spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union, said Muse Sudi Yalahow and Bashir Rage left Mogadishu late Friday on a boat and were later picked up by the warship.

U.S. officials have acknowledged backing the warlords against the Islamic group.

The departure of Yalahow and Rage from Mogadishu would mean the 11-member warlord-led Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism has collapsed.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Yusuf’s government is supported by Somalia’s neighbors, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union, so opposing it could mean regional and international isolation and possibly crippling sanctions for any administration the Islamic forces try to build.

The transitional government, whose military consists of little more than the president’s personal militia, has watched from the sidelines as the Islamic forces overcame a coalition of secular warlords.

(ST/AP)