Ethiopian troops join Somali govt forces to retake town

Oct 21, 2006 (MOGADISHU) — About 100 troops of Somalia’s transitional government, who are backed by Ethiopian soldiers, have retaken a main town between the capital and the government’s base from Islamic fighters, residents said Saturday.

The government soldiers and Ethiopian troops in about 30 pickup trucks mounted with machine guns fought Islamic militiamen for about 20 minutes before taking control of Bur Haqaba, which has been held by the government’s Islamic rivals for three months, the residents said.

“I saw many government troops with heavy weapons entering the town. They settled in the main strategic points in the town. They do not seem to be going back,” resident Hussein Ibrahim Ali told The Associated Press by telephone.

But it was not clear whether the Ethiopian soldiers actively took part in the battle. If they did, it would be the first time they have fought Islamic militiamen in Somalia following reports that Ethiopian soldiers entered the country in July.

Information Minister Ahmed Jama Jangali denied that Ethiopians had been involved in the fight.

He said that there were no casualties in the attack. Abdirahim Ali Mudey, a spokesman for the militia, said some people had been killed, but declined to give any figures.

Jangali, speaking on the phone from the government base, Baidoa, said government forces entered Bur Haqaba because Islamic militiamen were extorting money from drivers passing through the town and had threatened residents who supported the transitional government.

The Islamic militia’s foreign affairs chief, Ibrahim Hassan Adow, and Mudey called on Somalis to wage a holy war against Ethiopia because of the attack on Bur Haqaba.

At a joint news conference in the capital, Mogadishu, they warned that if the forces did not withdraw from the town, the Islamic militia would attack them.

Islamic militiamen seized Bur Haqaba, 60 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Baidoa, on July 19 and held onto it until Oct. 9, when government forces backed by Ethiopian troops seized control of it without a fight. They later withdrew and returned to their bases near Baidoa.

Residents and aid workers have reported that Ethiopian troops first entered Somalia, going to Baidoa, on July 20 to protect Ethiopia’s ally, President Abdullahi Yusuf’s weak U.N.-backed transitional government.

This occurred as Somalia’s Islamic courts consolidated their control over much of southern Somalia after seizing the capital in June.

Ethiopia and the transitional government have always denied that there are Ethiopian troops in the country, only saying that Somalia’s western neighbor has sent military trainers to help the government form a national army.

However, government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, say about 6,000 Ethiopian troops are in the country or encamped on the 1,600 kilometer (990 mile) porous border. Ethiopia, with almost half of its 77 million population Muslim, fears fundamentalism in its neighbor.

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.

Yusuf’s government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help in hopes of restoring order after years of bloodshed.

But it has never asserted much authority, and the Islamic group, trying to fill the power vacuum, seized control of much southern Somalia in June. Its strict and often severe interpretation of Islam raises the specter of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime.

The United States has accused the Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, while al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden has said Somalia is a battleground in his war on the West.

(AP)