Ogaden feud threatens to erupt into new war

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 8

Ogaden feud threatens to erupt into new war

International _.

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi Ihe Ogaden region faces renewed fighting with Somali guerrillas claiming they have captured the desert region’s main southern town. Ethiopian jets are reported to have bombed Somali villages.

The latest incidents threaten to trigger a new round of hostilities between the two sides in the Horn of Africa, three months after the end of the conventional war between them. The increasingly triumphant claims of the guerrillas could also spoil the courtship of the West by the Somali President (General Siad Barre) as he tries tol rebuild economically and' militarily after the Ogaden defeat and his break with the Soviet Union last year. On Thursday the guerrillas said in their newspaper, ‘Danab,” that they had capjtured Gode, about 200 km in-j side the border after a battle 1 I in which 300 Ethiopian and j Cuban troops died. Hours later Mogadishu; (Radio claimed that six Eth-j iiopian jets crossed the [frontier in the north, attack-; ing five towns and villages,.

-[killing 10 civilians and fl wounding 43. It was the; ' first cross-border air raid re- 1 ,(ported since March 31. .1 1 Ethiopia has repeatedly;] • threatened reprisals against [I Somalia unless it gives up 11 •lits declared moral and mat-it - erial support tor the guer-| iirilla governments. < But the guerrillas have 1 continued their hit-and-run 1 attacks and last week 1 J claimed to have killed more 1 [than 2000 enemy troops. These claims were consid- 1 .ered exaggerated by diplo- I mats with access to ■ in- j Itelligence reports, but they s ■have clearly angered the t Ethiopians, now preoccupied I [with putting down the 17-jf I year-old rebellion in their • northern province of Eritrea. I Ethiopia has so far made f [no comment on the official f Mogadishu Radio reports of v I the air attacks or on the sit- r iuation at Gode. it

President Siad Barre has travelled to Britain and West ' Germany in the last few; .days, where he received I promises of economic aid I i but apparently failed to seIcure any commitment on military help. General Siad Barre, who came to power through a military coup and whose four Vice-Presidents are all military men, depends heavily on a contented Army. In Beirut, African diplomatic sources have said that the Eritrean guerrilla chief, Ahmed Nasser, has paid a secret visit to Moscow amid signs of increased Soviet pressure for a negotiated end to Ethiopia®’ other' war in Eritrea province. The sources said that Mr Nasser went to Moscow from Algiers in the second week of June, less than a month after an Ethiopian offensive against Eritrean

guerrillas failed to break their grip on most of the [countryside and all but five; [towns.