16 dead in Ethiopian attacks

Ethiopia: At least 16 people were killed and dozens were injured on Monday in two attacks in eastern Ethiopia, a government official said. A rebel spokesman denied involvement. The attacks happened early on Monday in two towns in eastern Ethiopia, Jijiga and Degah Abur, said Nur Abdi Mohamed, an official of the Somali Regional State.

In Jijiga, an assailant threw a hand grenade during a national day ceremony, killing six people and wounding 51, Nur said.

Among the injured was the president of the Somali Regional State, Abdullahi Hassan. Abdullahi was treated for a minor leg injury at a hospital and later discharged, Nur said. He said attack was carried out by a rebel fighter from the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a group that is fighting for regional independence.

Nur said three other unexploded devices were found in Jijiga but had no other details. In the other attack, in Degah Abur, 10 people were killed and 16 others wounded, Nur said. He said he had no additional information about that attack.

Authorities were searching for the rebel responsible for the Jijiga attack, said Bereket Simon, an adviser to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The Ogaden National Liberation Front denied it was responsible for any attacks on Monday, claiming that Ethiopian security forces carried out the attacks to lay the blame on the rebels.

“It is their tradition to blame us for anything bad that happens in our region,’’ said Abdirahman Mahdi, the group’s spokesman, speaking from London. “When we want to attack them (the Ethiopian government) we will do so in daylight.

We attack their troops and don’t hide our action. We don’t have any hand in today’s attack. We are fighting the Ethiopian enemy. We are not fighting our people.’’ Abdirahman said he heard that between 15 and 30 people died in the Jijiga attack and that there were other attacks in eastern Ethiopia towns, but that information could not be verified.

In recent years, the Ogaden National Liberation Front has made occasional hit-and-run attacks against government troops, but seems to have changed tactics recently. In April it raided an oil exploration field, killing 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese. The group has fought for the secession of the Ogaden region - an area the size of Britain and home to 4 million people - since the early 1990s.

An spokesman for the ONLF, which demands self-determination for the largely Somali region of Ogaden, denied involvement.

"Our policy is not to attack civilian targets or Jijiga," Adurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, who is based in London, told Reuters news agency. "The ONLF attacks military targets only."