Ethiopia troops crossing into Somalia: top Islamist

By Andrew Cawthorne

JOWHAR, Somalia (Reuters) – About 300 Ethiopian troops
crossed into Somalia on Saturday, a top Islamist said, as
Islamic fighters who wrested control of Mogadishu moved inland
toward the seat of Somalia’s interim government.

Somalia’s interim President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former
warlord, is closely allied with Addis Ababa, which was
instrumental in his election after peace talks in Kenya in
2004.

“There are Ethiopian troops just past the border and coming
in,” Islamic Courts Union Chairman Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told
reporters, citing the incursion in Dollow in southwest Somalia
on Saturday morning.

The Ethiopian government had no immediate comment.

Dollow is near the intersection of the Kenyan, Ethiopian
and Somali borders and is on the road to Baidoa, where
Somalia’s weak interim government is based and has been
increasingly surrounded by the Islamist militias.

Ethiopia, Washington’s top counterterrorism ally in the
Horn of Africa, had backed warlords the Islamists have routed
from their strongholds in Mogadishu in a swift march from the
coastal capital to Baladwayne near the Ethiopian border.

Largely secular Ethiopia has long been wary of the
influence of Islam in the region, and has not hesitated to send
its military into Somalia. It has fought Islamic forces inside
Somalia before, and Yusuf was involved in the fighting.

The warlords have been supported and armed by Ethiopia as a
proxy force for years, and are widely believed to have been
financed with U.S. money in their last stand against the
Islamists, which killed 350 people in battles since February.

The warlords had accused the Islamists of harboring al
Qaeda members and planning to create an Islamic state. Ahmed
again denied any terrorist links.

A United Nations report on violations of an arms embargo
slapped on Somalia in 1992 said Ethiopia this year gave weapons
to warlord Mohamed Dheere, run out of his stronghold in Jowhar,
90 km (55 miles) north of Mogadishu, by the Islamists last
week.

Dheere is believed to have taken refuge in Addis Ababa, the
Ethiopian capital.

Ahmed’s group has said it wants peaceful dialogue with
Yusuf’s government and has no plans to form its own. It has,
however, installed Islamic sharia courts wherever it has taken
control and some fear it plans to expand its grip further.

Ahmed said the courts would not accept Yemen’s offer to
host peace talks if the government put any conditions on them.