Baidoa, Somalia - Ethiopian tanks rolled to the battlefront on Friday as Somali Islamists and Somalia's pro-government troops pounded each other with artillery and rockets in a fourth day of clashes edging closer to all-out war.The Islamists said they would send ground troops to attack en masse on Saturday, as opposed to fighting from a distance with heavy weapons as the two sides have done so far, ignoring a European peace initiative. "Our troops have not started to attack. From tomorrow [Saturday] the attack will start," Islamist deputy spokesperson Ibrahim Shukri told a news conference.
| Frontal wave attack. Pity the thirteen year old lads sent to their deaths. |
An Islamist fighter near one of the fronts in Daynunay said the tanks had attacked his unit, and he was awaiting anti-tank weapons to fight back. "We can see
If confirmed, the involvement of the
Daynunay is the government's forward military base, about 20km south-east of Baidoa. Ethiopia has said it has military trainers there, but not combat troops. The other front, Idaale, is 70km south-west of Baidoa, a southern agricultural trading post that is the only town the government controls.
Fighting began late on Tuesday, as an SICC deadline for Ethiopian troops to leave Somalia or face a holy war passed. By Wednesday night, it was clear the European Union's announcement the same day that the two sides had agreed to restart peace talks and stop fighting had begun to ring hollow. The SICC has taken control of most of southern Somalia by dint of its military might and imposition of strict sharia law.
Washington and what it considers to be its top counter-terrorism ally in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, say the SICC is led by an al-Qaeda cell, which the military-religious movement denies. The SICC says it has the popular support the government lacks, bringing law and order to a nation convulsed with anarchy since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
The SICC said Ethiopian troops were moving by air and ground toward Galkaayo, a strategic central Somali town held as a forward defence base by government-allied Puntland fighters. "We hope fighting will simultaneously start there too. We call upon the Somalis to rise up and join in the jihad," SICC Secretary Ibrahim Suley told reporters. Ethiopia and Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, a Puntland native, are keen to keep the relatively stable, semi-autonomous Puntland region and its strategic ports out of SICC hands.
A Puntland fighter said by telephone from near Galkaayo: "There is a lot of troop movement. From the way things are going, fighting can start any time."