| "Nope. Nope. Never happened." |
Ethiopia has denied sending troops into Somalia after the Islamic Courts Union leader accused its neighbour of deploying 300 soldiers across the border. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, said Ethiopian troops had entered Somalia through the border town of Dolow in the southwestern region of Gedo at 8am (0500 GMT). "We want the whole world to know what's going on," Ahmed told journalists. "Ethiopia has crossed our borders and are heading for us. They are supporting the transitional federal government. "They have deployed a lot of soldiers around the border towns, which is why we have been saying that Ethiopia is going to send in troops to Somalia," the cleric said.However, Bereket Simon, an Ethiopian minister without portfolio and close ally of Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, said Ethiopian soldiers were at the border but had not crossed it. "Ethiopia has a right to monitor its border," he said. "Ethiopia has not crossed the border. So far, the fundamentalists (Somalia Islamists) have occupied Baladwayne and are marching toward the Ethiopian border. Ethiopia hopes that they will not cross the border."
Aljazeera's correspondent in Mogadishu cited witnesses as saying more than 100 Ethiopian trucks had massed along the road to Bedawa, where the headquarters of the interim Somali government is located. Separately, a spokesman for the Ethiopian foreign ministry told Aljazeera that Addis Ababa had no interests in interfering in Somalia.