Ethiopia admits fighting Islamists in Somalia
Dec 25, 2006 (MOGADISHU) — Ethiopia on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that its military was fighting opposition Islamist forces in Somalia, but denied seeking to set up a government in its volatile neighbor.
“As of today, our defense forces have launched a counter offensive, which is completely legal and proportional, on these anti-peace forces (the Union of Islamic Courts),” Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in a broadcast.
“We are not trying to set up a government for Somalia, nor do we have an intention to meddle in Somalian internal affairs. We have only been forced by the circumstances,” he added, in comments on state radio and television.
His announcement came amid a burgeoning conflict in the Horn of Africa nation, where Addis Ababa has long denied a major military presence beyond trainers and advisers helping Somalia’s weak government.
The Ethiopian government had earlier on Sunday admitted that it had tanks and troops fighting in Somalia, while civilians in the country reported that Ethiopian jets had bombarded Islamist positions.
War planes hit the town of Beledweyne and other frontier outposts, residents said, while heavy artillery battles erupted at several towns deeper in Somalia, putting hundreds of civilians to flight.
“The planes targeted infrastructure, Islamic installations like recruitment centres, and a small airstrip,” Hussein Muhamoud, a Beledweyne resident, told AFP from the town about 30 kilometers from the border.
An Islamist officer in Beledweyne, Sheikh Hassan Derrow, said Ethiopian MiG aircraft were “bombing our civilians”. He described the attackers as the “enemy of Allah,” while other Islamists renewed calls for a holy war against the Ethiopians.
The Islamists have accused Ethiopia of deploying thousands of troops to protect the government based in Baidoa, about 250 kilometers northwest of the capital Mogadishu, which fell to the Islamists as they extended their hold over central and south Somalia from June.
Somalia has been lawless and divided among warlords, a coalition of whom backs the current transitional government, since the ouster in 1991 of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The government in mainly Orthodox Christian Ethiopia, which has its own Muslim population to consider as well as ethnic Somalis of the Ogaden region, said its offensive was provoked by Islamist attempts to infiltrate Ethiopia.
“We have been forced to take these measures as our security and stability and sovereignty have been threatened,” the defense ministry in Addis Ababa said.
Information ministry spokesman Zemedkum Tekle said Ethiopia took action after the Islamists shelled its territory, but denied the claims of attacks by war planes.
Heavy fighting began on Dec 20 after the expiry of an ultimatum by the Islamists for Ethiopia to pull out its troops, heightening fears of a conflict that could draw in Ethiopia’s foe, Eritrea.
Fighting was also reported on Sunday near Islamist-held Burhakaba in the south, about 60 kilometers east of Baidoa, while the government said it had recaptured the nearby Idale trading post.
The death toll from five days of battle remains unclear, with both sides claiming to have killed hundreds.
The escalation follows flooding in parts of the country, and the U.N. World Food Program said Saturday that it had started airlifting supplies.
Leo van der Welden, WFP country director for Somalia, called for aid for “almost half a million Somalis now threatened by regional war.” The U.N. humanitarian office OCHA urged fighters to make a safe corridor for civilians.
EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel, who was in Somalia on Wednesday to try to mediate, condemned “the escalation of the conflict into an all-out war” and appealed for all sides to cease hostilities and resume peace talks.
(AFP)