Mogadishu, Dec 25 (DPA) Ethiopia's military Monday seized a town held by Islamists it had pounded with jets and struck the airport here, dragging the anarchic Somalia into a war and driving up fears that a larger regional war could erupt.
The attacks, which included a strike on a former military airport 100 km west of Mogadishu controlled by the Islamists, came a day after Ethiopia declared war on Somalia's powerful Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
MiG fighter jets hit Mogadishu's airport, which was recently reopened by the UIC after 10 years of inactivity, wounding at least two people.
"Two Ethiopian warplanes were attacking the airport, dropping bombs on the runway and the parking," said Abdirahim Adan Weheliye, the manager of Mogadishu International Airport.
Ethiopia declared war on Somalia's Islamists late Sunday, saying it was defending itself from the group, which controls much of the Horn of Africa country.
The attack on the airport followed intense fighting and Ethiopian air strikes near the town of Baladweyne, 320 km north of Baidoa, the seat of Somalia's weak transitional government.
Ethiopia Monday said it seized Baladweyne from the Islamists after a 24-hour air barrage.
In a live speech aired on television and radio Sunday night, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that parliament had passed a resolution that would allow the country to protect its sovereignty.
"To defend the attack from the UIC, we are forced to go into war today," Zenawi said.
The announcement came the same day Ethiopia finally admitted to having sent combat troops in the country, which it had long denied, saying it only sent training officers to support the weak transitional government.
The largely Christian Ethiopia has said it refuses to share a border with an Islamic state, branding the Islamists terrorists and vowing to protect the UN-backed transitional government. Ethiopia and Somalia have a long and violent history, fighting two wars over a disputed region.
Meanwhile, the transitional government in Baidoa has announced it was sealing the country's land, sea and air borders and said it agreed with the Ethiopian attack on the airport.
Source: DPA, Dec 25, 2006