Friday December 8, 2006 3:01 PM
By MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR
Associated Press Writer
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - A top Islamic official said Friday that militiamen are fighting Ethiopian troops in a southern Somalia town, and he called on Somalis to defeat ``the enemies who have invaded our land.''
If confirmed, it will be the first time the Islamic militias that control most of southern Somalia have fought directly with Ethiopian troops.
``New fighting has started in Dinsor. Our forces have been raided by Ethiopian troops, so people get up and fight against the Ethiopians,'' Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told a crowd of hundreds after Friday prayers. Islamic militiamen seized Dinsor on Saturday without encountering resistance or firing a shot.
``Stand up and overcome the enemies who have invaded our land,'' he told the crowd, which had gathered to protest a U.N. resolution allowing an African peacekeeping force into Somalia.
Demonstrations were held in several towns throughout Somalia against Wednesday's U.N. resolution, which eases a 14-year arms embargo on Somalia so an African force can equip itself. The resolution stopped Somalia's neighbors - Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya - from contributing troops.
Ethiopian troops were first reported in Somalia in June, soon after the Islamic courts took the capital, Mogadishu. Ethiopia has always said it has only a few hundred military advisers in Somalia to help the transtional government form a national army, but a confidential U.N. report obtained by The Associated Press in October said 6,000-8,000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border.
The report also said 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea were inside Somalia. Eritrea denies having any troops in Somalia.
Earlier Friday, Sheikh Abdullahi Ali Hashi, a spokesman for the Islamic courts, claimed Ethiopian troops had shelled the central Somalia town of Bandiradley, while residents of a nearby village said Ethiopian troops and tanks had taken up positions near the town.
Witnesses in a village near Bandiradley said hundreds of Ethiopian troops and tanks had taken up positions near the town.
They said that this new movement puts these forces and their rival Islamic courts' militias just over a mile apart.
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Associated Press writer Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia contributed to this report.
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