Horn of Africa power Ethiopia said on Thursday it was tracking military movements by Somalia’s newly powerful Islamists and would ”crush” any attack on President Abdullahi Yusuf’s interim government.
”We will use all means at our disposal to crush the Islamist group if they attempt to attack Baidoa, the seat of the transitional federal government,” Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu told Reuters in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia backs Yusuf’s secular-based government, which is located in the provincial Somali town of Baidoa, and condemns the Islamist movement, which took the capital Mogadishu last month, as being run by ”terrorists”.
A move by Islamist militia towards Baidoa on Wednesday heightened fears of conflict between the two sides.
”Ethiopia is closely monitoring the jihadist Islamist group which has now returned to Mogadishu after a warning from Ethiopia not to attack Baidoa, the seat of the transitional government,” Hailu added.
Reuters witnesses confirmed the return on Thursday. Ethiopia is a key player in the current Somali crisis, with experts and sources on the ground saying it has several thousand troops already in Somali territory to deter Islamist advances.
Another 20 000 or so are lined up just inside the Ethiopian border, experts say.
Ethiopia has invaded neighbouring Somalia in the past to fight Muslim radicals.
Various international diplomatic initiatives are under way to avert conflict in Somalia, which has been plagued by violence and without central rule since 1991 when warlords ousted military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
But many Somalis and analysts fear the standoff between the Mogadishu-based Islamists and the interim government — which has little authority beyond Baidoa — could quickly slip into war if there is provocation on either side.
Minister Hailu said Addis Ababa supported initiatives by the African Union (AU) and East African regional body Igad.
Both, controversially, have proposed foreign peacekeeping troops: a plan fiercely opposed by the Islamists and condemned by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as tantamount to an anti-Islam ”crusade”.
”Ethiopia believes that the Somalia issue can only be resolved through Igad and African Union resolutions,” Hailu added.
Interim President Yusuf has long been backed by Ethiopia, including in battles against the Islamists’ hardline leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, in the years of anarchy after 1991.
Aweys, a former army colonel in Barre’s army, is a former leader of al-Ittihad al-Islaami. – Reuters