Ethiopian planes bomb Somali areas - witnesses

By Hassan Yare

BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ethiopian planes dropped bombs and fired missiles on two locations in Somalia on Sunday, witnesses said, as fighting between Somali Islamists and their Ethiopian-allied rivals raged for a sixth day. 

There was no immediate word from Ethiopia, which has said it would make public any intention of war against the Islamists, or from the Somali interim government. 

Resident Abdirashid Hassan said he saw planes drop bombs on the outskirts of Baladwayne, 190 miles (300 km) north of the capital Mogadishu. "The Ethiopians have started bombing," he said by telephone. 

Another witness, businessman Farah Osman, said two Ethiopian planes fired missiles on the outskirts of Bandiradley, 435 miles (700 km) north of Mogadishu. 

A senior Islamist, Sheikh Mahmud Ibrahim Suley, accused the Ethiopians of using MiG warplanes and helicopters against Islamist positions. 

"Today the war is being fought by land and air," he told reporters in Mogadishu, adding that Islamists had destroyed five Ethiopian tanks. He did not comment on casualties. 

If confirmed, the use of foreign attack aircraft would ratchet up tensions in what is already the most sustained combat yet between the Islamists and Ethiopia-backed government, marooned in the south-central trading outpost Baidoa. 

Both sides say they have killed hundreds since the fighting began on Tuesday, although aid agencies report dozens of dead. 

The Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) captured Mogadishu and a swathe of southern Somalia in June, challenging the Western-backed interim government's aim to restore central rule for the first time since the 1991 ouster of a dictator. 

This week's clashes have heightened fears of a regional war that would ensnare Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea, attract foreign jihadists and trigger possible suicide bombings in east Africa. 

MEMORIES OF OLD ENMITY 

Fighters loyal to both sides started firing shells, rockets and machine guns at each other shortly after dawn on Sunday, witnesses said, in battles that spread to four fronts. 

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 admits only having a few hundred military trainers in the encircled government base Baidoa. 

"Fighting is going on from one part of the country to the other. The Islamic Courts have ignited the war they promised yesterday," Information Minister Ali Ahmed Jama "Jangali" told Reuters. "They will lose in this fighting." 

An Islamist fighter speaking from close to the semi-autonomous Puntland region, home of interim President Abdullahi Yusuf, said: "Now there is a full-blown war." 

Fighting was reported near Daynunay, the government's forward military base about 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Baidoa. Battles also broke out in Manas, west of Baidoa, Kalaber to the north and Bandiradley, close to the border with Puntland with many people fleeing. 

Witnesses reported an unmarked C-130 circling above Galkaayo, close to Puntland. 

In Mogadishu, sombre-faced groups of men gathered to listen to radio news broadcasts and some made calls to relatives in the battle zones. 

Late on Friday, a van with loudspeakers patrolled the streets of the war-scarred city asking residents and shopkeepers to contribute to the "jihad" efforts. 

Several radio stations aired patriotic songs, urging Somalis to defend their country, some dating from the 1977-78 Ogaden war, fought against a backdrop of shifting Cold War alliances. 

During that war, Ethiopia's army crushed Somali troops who tried to lay claim to the ethnically Somali Ogaden region. 

(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed and Sahal Abdulle in Mogadishu)