Somali Mujahedeen Ambush Ethiopian Invaders
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Courtesy Of: Yahoo News
From: Agence France-Presse
By Mustafa Haji Abdinur
Tue Nov 21, 2006

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Muslim fighters clashed with Ethiopian forces near the seat of Somalia's government, inflicting large numbers of casualties and destroying armoured vehicles, officials and witnesses said.

The Islamists, who have vowed holy war against Ethiopian troops protecting the weak government, ambushed an Ethiopian convoy in Qasah-Omane, a small village some 70 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of Baidoa, where both sides are girding for war.

As the Islamists claimed victory in the second attack against Ethiopians in three days, witnesses reported fresh fighting at another outpost south of Baidoa, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of the capital.

"Our local Mujahedeens ambushed three armoured vehicles, they blew up one and two others were also lightly damaged," said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the deputy security chief for the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia.

"I can also confirm that soldiers who were on board also suffered casualties," he told AFP in the Islamist-held Mogadishu.

"These operations will continue until we totally defeat the forces of the devil who are in our territories," Robow explained.

In Adale, about 38 kilometres (24 miles) south of Baidoa, witnesses reported a heavy exchange of fire between the Islamists and Ethiopian forces, one of the few direct confrontations in the recent months.

"We don't know the casualties but we can confirm to you that fighting is raging," Osman Anteno, a resident, told AFP by phone.

Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment and the report could not be independently confirmed due to instability and poor communications in the area where the attack was said to have taken place.

...The Islamists last month claimed to have drawn first blood in the jihad by attacking another Ethiopian convoy in the same area, killing two soldiers.

Ethiopia denies reports it has thousands of combat troops in Somalia but admits several hundred military advisers, trainers and support personnel have been sent to help the transitional government in Baidoa.

...Experts have warned that Somalia could become a battle ground for Ethiopia and Eritrea, which has been accused of deploying thousands of fighters to back the Islamists.

According to a recent report compiled by experts monitoring a 1992 UN arms embargo, the Somali situation contains "all of the ingredients for the increasing possibility of a violent, widespread, and protracted military conflict."

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061121/wl_afp/somaliaethiopiaunrest_061121175902