Ethiopia, Somali tensions mount after Ethiopian troop movement

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Heavily armed Ethiopian troops propping up Somalia's weak government have retreated after an advance towards Islamist fighters amid fears of war in the Horn of Africa nation, witnesses said on Thursday.

Tensions have mounted between the Western-backed interim administration and the powerful Islamists whose control over most of southern Somalia has challenged the government's plans to impose central rule on a country in chaos since 1991.

The Islamists are just 30 kms (18 miles) away from the government's sole outpost Baidoa, where residents say Ethiopian troops are protecting President Abdullahi Yusuf's government and have dug trenches around its nearby military camp.

Residents said Ethiopian soldiers had advanced on Wednesday from the camp to man a checkpoint in Modmodey, a remote village surrounded by maize fields and within striking distance from the Islamists' defence line in Buur Hakaba.

"The Ethiopians advanced towards Buur Hakaba yesterday," resident Abdi Ahmed said by telephone. "On my way from Baidoa, I saw nearly 40 Ethiopian troops armed with heavy machine guns in Modmodey. They checked my car and then told me to proceed."

Ahmed said the Ethiopians had chased away freelance militias that had operated the checkpoint.

One Islamist fighter, speaking from their frontline in Buur Hakaba, said Ethiopian troops were so close he could see them.

"This is the first time they have come this close," the fighter who declined to be named said. "If I threw a stone I could have hit one of them."

But another Islamist fighter said the Ethiopians had retreated back to the Daynunay camp on Thursday: "They returned back towards Daynunay early today. Buur Hakaba is very calm now. There is no problem at all."

Ethiopia has denied sending troops to Somalia although it says it has sent several hundred armed trainers there.

Somali Information minister Ali Ahmed Jama "Jangali" denied the Ethiopians troops had advanced. "That's not true. There is nothing like that," he said by phone from Baidoa.

Both the government -- the 14th attempt at central rule since the 1991 ouster of a dictator -- and the Islamists, who seized Mogadishu in June and then advanced into the hinterland, are vying for control of the nation of 10 million.

A third round of peace talks in Sudan between the two sides failed two weeks ago and many fear war could spread around the Horn and possibly further south into Kenya and beyond.

Troops loyal to the Islamists and fighters allied to the government have also clashed near the border of the semi-autonomous northern Puntland region.

A U.N. report, obtained by Reuters, says a web of nations and armed groups are fuelling Somalia's march to war, painting a detailed picture of foreign interests it says are allied to both the interim government and the Islamists.

Written by four experts from the United States, Kenya, Belgium and Colombia, it says at least seven African and Middle Eastern nations are providing arms and military supplies to the Islamists, who aim to rule Somalia through sharia law. It says three are arming the government.

The primary violators of a widely ignored 1992 arms ban on Somalia, the report says, are Ethiopia and Eritrea, which is allegedly backing the Islamists. The Islamists on Wednesday dismissed as "fabrication" the report.