Ethiopia dismisses Somali threat, violence flares

By Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia Wednesday dismissed a threat of invasion from Somalia's hardline Islamist insurgents saying the rebels posed no clear and present danger.

Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from the capital Mogadishu. That sparked an insurgency that is still raging, despite the troops' withdrawal in January.

Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Somalia's al Shabaab rebel group are battling to oust President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, himself a former Islamist insurgent who joined a peace process last year.

Tuesday, al Shabaab threatened to attack Ethiopia, urging its fighters to wage jihad against its neighbor.

"We have heard the declaration of war from al Shabaab," said Ethiopian government head of information Bereket Simon. "We cannot say this is a clear and present danger to Ethiopia."

Al Shabaab and allied fighters control much of southern and central Somalia and have boxed the government and 4,300 African Union peackeepers into a few blocks of Mogadishu.

Street fighting and mortar shelling killed at least 15 people and wounded 42 in the capital late Wednesday, residents and ambulance workers said.

Resident Abdullahi Ahmed said he had seen 6 dead fighters in the street and that he had been hit in the hand by shrapnel.

Ambulance service official Ali Muse said they had taken 9 bodies and 42 wounded people to hospitals.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

Western nations and Somalia's neighbors worry that if the rebels succeed in toppling Ahmed, the Horn of Africa nation will become a safe haven for al Qaeda training camps and hardline Islamists will destabilize the region.

The government's military spokesman, Farhan Arsanyo, told Reuters late Wednesday they had captured two opposition fighters who admitted they were Pakistani.

"We will be displaying them to the media tomorrow," he said.

The insurgency has sucked in foreign jihadists, enabled piracy to flourish in the busy shipping lanes off Somalia and put neighboring countries on high alert.

Ethiopia has kept a strong military force along its common border since withdrawing. While it has repeatedly denied sending combat troops back into Somalia, it has acknowledged making "reconnaissance" missions into its neighbor.