BAIDOA, Somalia—Ethiopian planes defending Somalia's weak interim government pounded Islamist fighters in Somalia on Sunday in an escalating conflict that threatens to engulf the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu said the operation targeted several fronts including Dinsoor, Bandiradley and Baladwayne and the town of Buur Hakaba—close to the administration's encircled south-central base Baidoa.
It was the first use of airstrikes and Ethiopia's first public admission of its military involvement in Somalia, whose government is surrounded by fighters of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) backed by mortars and machineguns.
"After too much patience, the Ethiopian government has taken self-defensive measures and started counter-attacking the aggressive extremist forces of the Islamic Courts and foreign terrorist groups," Berhan told Reuters.
Diplomats fear Addis Ababa's announcement may have touched off a war ensnaring Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea.
They also fear it may attract foreign jihadists answering the Islamists' call for holy war against Christian-led Ethiopia and possibly trigger suicide bombings in east Africa.
Berhan gave no details, but Somali witnesses said Ethiopian planes droned overhead dropping bombs and firing missiles as Islamist and government forces battled for a sixth day.
Islamists also accused Ethiopia of using MiG warplanes and helicopters.
Ali Dahir Horow, a resident in Baladwayne, 190 miles (300 km) north of Mogadishu said one airstrike killed two people.
"People started fleeing once the planes fired at the town," he said, adding most missiles nearby hit Ceel Jaale, where many people escaped to after last month's heavy flooding.
Aid Efforts
The U.N. World Food Program said it dropped 14 tonnes of aid to flood-affected villages in southern Somalia, shortly after reports of the airstrikes.
Another U.N. agency said the conflict would have disastrous consequences for efforts to help 1.4 million people also suffering from the floods.
Both sides say they have killed hundreds since the fighting began on Tuesday, although aid agencies report dozens of dead.
Both sides have rained rockets, mortars and machinegun fire across several parts of a slim frontline near Baidoa. Amid the explosions, pick-up trucks armed with heavy weapons have ferried supplies forward and collected the injured.
In the Islamist port city of Kismayu, hundreds of women and children waved goodbye to 1,000 men who had volunteered for the frontline. Dressed in a ragtag of fatigues, the men sped off in camouflage-painted trucks to the chants of "Victory is ours".
Further north in Mogadishu, women and children gathered in a market to badger men walking along the streets to join the war.
"They told me to wear their clothes if I will not go to war," said Abdi Rashid. "They said I'm not a man, because all men are on the frontline, so I should wear women's clothes."
The SICC captured Mogadishu and a swathe of south Somalia in June, frustrating the Western-backed government's aim to restore central rule for the first time in 15 years.
In other parts of the coastal capital, somber-faced groups of men huddled together to listen to radio news broadcasts, some making calls to relatives in the battle zones.
Several radio stations aired patriotic songs, urging Somalis to defend their country, with some dating from the 1977-78 Ogaden war when Ethiopia's army crushed Somali troops who tried to lay claim to its ethnically Somali Ogaden region.
Unwinnable War?
Independent specialist on Somalia, Matt Bryden, told Reuters he did not expect either side to win the war decisively.
"The Ethiopians are trying to hit the Islamists hard enough that they will come to the negotiation table," he said. "But they run the risk the war will become a protracted and unwinnable conflict.".
He expected the Islamists would struggle to unseat the government from its fortified Baidoa base, but may rally support from the Muslim world and Somalis at home and abroad.
Military experts estimate Ethiopia has 15,000-20,000 troops in Somalia, while Eritrea has about 2,000 behind the Islamists.
Asmara denies the accusation, while Addis Ababa previously admitted to having a few hundred military trainers in Baidoa.
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