MOGADISHU, Somalia: Government forces backed by Ethiopian troops have clashed for a second day with Islamic militiamen near a village in southern Somalia, officials said Saturday.
Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal, an Islamic courts official, said that the government had launched a counterattack at Rama'addey village, while Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi claimed that Islamic militiamen had attacked government positions.
"The Ethiopian troops along with government troops have counterattacked our militia ... The fighting is going on," said Bilal, an Islamic courts official of the Bay region where the village is located.
The transitional government and Ethiopia have consistently denied that Ethiopian forces are in the country, but their presence has been widely reported by witnesses and journalists. Ethiopia has said that it has a few hundred military advisers in Somalia helping the government form a national army.
Rama'addey, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of the government's headquarters of Baidoa, is at a front line between the Islamic courts and transitional government forces.
Residents said that in the past two days there has been increased movement of military personnel in Baidoa, raising tensions in the town, which is 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu. The residents, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals, said that on Friday they saw President Abdullahi Yusuf dressed in military uniform in a pickup mounted with machine guns that was part of a military convoy of 16 vehicles.
Speaking in neighboring Kenya's capital, Nairobi, Gedi told The Associated Press that the Islamic militia fought with a government reconnaissance force on Friday. He said it was clear the Islamic forces were attempting to destabilize his government by attacking his forces.
"They met with a reconnaissance team from the government in the area, some fighting took place and casualties were limited," Gedi said. "This morning, they have attacked the government forces on the front line and the fighting is continuing."
He said the fighting was not the beginning of a government offensive and reiterated that he was prepared for renewed peace talks, scheduled for later this month in Khartoum, Sudan. But he said that it was clear that the Islamic courts were attempting to continue their military advance in direct defiance of a U.N. resolution on Wednesday.
Communications networks are down in Rama'addey and surrounding villages and in the nearest town, Dinsor, making it difficult to reach residents either by mobile phone or radio.
On Friday, the rivals clashed in Safarnoolees village, which served as a base for the transitional government forces. The Islamic militiamen claimed that they had routed the government forces Friday while Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle denied that had happened.
Eyewitnesses reported Saturday that they counted at least 15 people killed and 18 others wounded in that fighting.
"We could see the dead bodies, but we couldn't know who they were," said Sheikh Abdi Garre, who saw the bodies on the road to the government-controlled town of Baidoa, from where he spoke by phone.
Sheikh Ibrahim Shukri Abuu-zeynab, a spokesman for the Islamic courts that controls most of southern Somalia, said that the dead were government and Ethiopian soldiers.
"We defeated them and they were forced to leave their dead behind," Abuu-zeynab said.
Jelle denied that Ethiopians were fighting on the government side and said the dead were not government soldiers.
Somalia has not had an effective central government for 15 years, after warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other.
A transitional government was formed two years but it has been unable to assert its authority over the country and since June the Council of Islamic Courts has seized the capital, Mogadishu, and taken control of much of southern Somalia.
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Associated Press writers Salad Duhul and Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu, Somalia, and Chris Tomlinson in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.
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