By Jason McLure

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia may invade Somalia if Islamist rebels oust the government and threaten its security, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said, as his Somali counterpart declared a state of emergency amid increasing violence.

U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting the Islamic Courts Union government that had briefly captured southern Somalia. The army occupied the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and the southern town of Baidoa in an effort to bolster the government, though the forces became bogged down in a guerrilla war with Islamist militias that now control most of the country’s south. They withdrew in January.

Ethiopia will send its troops over the border again if Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys’ Hisbul Islam group and its allies in the al-Shabaab militia pose a “serious threat” to the country, Meles said in an interview on June 19 in Addis Ababa.

“If he’s a real threat, an existential threat to us and if he wants to be attacked then of course we will try to do what we did before,” Meles said. “If he poses a clear and present danger then we will deal with a clear and present danger in any way we can.”

Somalia’s government on June 20 called for foreign troops to enter the country to help fight insurgents who are helping the Islamists in their fight against President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s government. Today, Sharif declared a state of emergency after the death of a third government official since June 18, including Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden, who died in a suicide-bomb attack.

‘Increasing Onslaught’

“I was forced to choose this state of emergency in order to overcome this increasing onslaught” by opponents of the government, Sharif told reporters today in the capital, Mogadishu.

The United Nations said last month that al-Qaeda has sent as many as 300 fighters to Somalia to support Islamists and warlords seeking to topple Sharif. The foreigners are training the al-Shabaab rebels and helping them mobilize funds and weapons, Nicolas Bwakira, the head of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, said on May 22.

Al-Shabaab has been accused by the U.S. of providing safe- haven and logistical support to al-Qaeda, which aims to establish a caliphate, or Islamic government, in Somalia. The militia vowed to defeat any foreign troops that come to the aid of the government.

‘Cats and Dogs’

“Our cats and dogs are eager to eat the dead bodies of your boys if they will deploy to our territory,” Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, a spokesman for the militia, told reporters yesterday in Mogadishu.

Aweys was previously based in Asmara, capital of Eritrea. Ethiopia fought a border war with the neighboring country from 1998 to 2000. Eritrea has denied it supports Aweys.

“We don’t like him, there is no pretension on our side that we like him or are comfortable with him,” said Meles. “We would like to see his back.”

Aweys said in a statement to reporters yesterday in Mogadishu that the rebels would oppose foreign troops deployed in Somalia “by any means.”

Somalia has requested assistance from the United Nations, the AU, the Arab League and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa to help deal with an emerging humanitarian crisis as thousands of people flee fighting in the capital, Mogadishu.

The AU Commission said in a statement late yesterday that Somalia’s government “has the right to seek support from AU member states and the larger international community, in order to protect the Somali people.”

Somalia is in its 18th year of civil war and hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, in 1991.

< Prev		Next >