Somalis claim more successes

Press, 24 August 1977, Page 8

Somalis claim more successes

, NZPA-Reuter Nairobi I Somali guerrillas have ;killed or wounded more than [lOOO Ethiopian troops in a ibattle for two Government ■ strongholds in the mountains of Bale province, just 250 km I south-east <rf Addis Ababa, •Mogadishu radio has said. I The radio, monitored in [Nairobi, quoted a commun* ique from the Western So- ' malia Liberation Front which said 689 Ethiopians were killed, 500 wounded, and “many" had surrendered during attacks on villages and strongpoints around the towns of Goba and Ginir. “Only Ginir and Goba in the Bale region still remain in Addis Ababa hands but a heavy attack to take these towns is currently under way and the Addis forces are" rapidly losing ground,’’ it said.

The fighting in the Bale mountains on the far side of the rift valley from the Ethiopian capital is the closest the month-long war has come to Addis Ababa. It was the first war communique from the W.S.L.F. for a week. The front left virtually unmentioned the big battle last week for the industrial centre of Dire Dawa, closer to the Somali border. Ethiopia says it drove back a Somali assault backed by tanks and aircraft, inflicting several hundred casualties On the Somalis. Addis Ababa radio reported that thousands of people marched through the Eritrean port of Assab on Monday to support the general mobilisation ordered in a week-end speech by the Head of State (Lieutenant* Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam). It is not yet known how the general mobilisation will be organised. Colonel Mengistu said “people’s commands” would be set up but there has been no indication yet of how many will be called to arms, where they will be trained and what they will be armed with. .

Since Cdlonel Mengistu secured Soviet arms supplies earlier this year a “people’s militia” of some 135,000 has already been raised and deployed to the battlefields and a “worker’s militia” has just begun training at a vast camp outside Addis Ababa.