ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia Ethiopia's prime minister told parliament Thursday that he has sent military trainers to help Somalia's struggling government, the first official acknowledgment that Ethiopian troops are inside the neighboring country.
However, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia has not deployed a fighting force. U.N. officials and local resident have long reported that Ethiopian troops have deployed inside Somali border towns and around the transitional government headquarters in Baidoa, 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the capital, Mogadishu, to support the weak government against Islamic militants.
Zenawi did not say how many trainers he had sent to Ethiopia's eastern neighbor, but said the move was in keeping with international efforts to support a transitional government seeking to establish itself in a country that has been largely lawless for 15 years. "We have sent only trainers, who are soldiers," Meles said. "Other than this, the army has not entered into Somalia." Ethiopian troops were first seen in the country after an Islamic group, the Council of Islamic Courts, took over Mogadishu and continued to expand across most of southern and central Somalia.Leaders in the Islamic courts have declared a Holy War on Ethiopia because of the troop deployment.
Meles said such threats, and reported incursions into Ethiopia by Islamic militants, could lead to war if some kind of peaceful accommodation is not reached with the Islamic courts. "We have the right to defend ourselves against these people.We have been very patient throughout this ordeal," Meles said. "If the incursion continues ..
. the armed forces have a duty to respond to that."
"But at this moment, it has not reached this level," he added. Meles said his country was threatened on three fronts and that he was doing everything possible to keep those conflicts from turning violent. He said that in addition to the Islamic forces in Somalia, longtime rival Eritrea had moved troops into a U.N.-monitored demilitarized zone between the two countries and Ethiopian insurgents were threatening his government from within.
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