Somalis ‘poised to take vital Ethiopian city’

Press, 29 November 1977, Page 9

Somalis ‘poised to take vital Ethiopian city’

NZPA-Reuter Djibouti Soviet and Cuban advisers with the Ethiopian Army have been evacuated from the besieged mountain city of Harar. according to sources in Djibouti. Observers said the evacuation indicated that the city was again gravely threatened by Somali forces which have swept across the Ogaden Desert and occupied most of Somali-inhabited eastern Ethiopia in four and a half months of war. About 400 Cuban military advisers and an unknown number of Soviet personnel are helping the Ethiopians master the Soviet-mad<

i equipment rushed in recent weeks to the Harar area to ; prop up Ethiopia’s crum- ■ bling defences. i But Ethiopian forces are ' still in control of the 1000- > year-old walled city, which is crucial to Ethiopia’s ■ whole eastern front against •. the Somali forces. Aircraft, tanks, and heavy > artillery have been used in : the battle for Harar, which 1 was penetrated on Wednes--1 day by a Somali vanguard I unit. The unit was later driven back to the surrounding ' hills. i The white walls of Harar 1 have been breached in : several places and some Ethteiopian units in the defence

perimeter around the city nave been over-run. The sources in Djibouti said that certain newlytrained People’s Militia units had broken up and their members had taken to the hills. Military analysts say that if Harar falls the nearby railway town of Dire Dawa, which has the only concrete runway for Ethiopia’s jet bombers in the eastern part of the country, will go too. If the Somalis manage to take Harar they will be in a position to cut Dire Dawa’s supply road to Addis Ababa and to close down the air base with shelling from the nearby mountains.