 By VOA News 08 December 2006 |
A spokesman for the Islamic Courts, Sheikh Abdullahi, says Ethiopian forces shelled the Islamist-controlled town of Bandiradley in central Somalia late Thursday.
Meanwhile, senior Islamist official Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told a rally Friday that heavy fighting has begun in the Dinsoor area, in southern Somalia.
Witnesses confirm the fighting around Bandiradley, while the situation in Dinsoor remains unclear.
Somalis have been bracing for war amid rising tensions between Ethiopia and the Islamists.
On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council authorized sending peacekeepers to the Horn of Africa country.
The Somali government welcomed the decision, while the Islamists vowed to fight any foreign troops that enter Somali territory.
Ethiopia sent an unknown number of military personnel into Somalia earlier this year to protect the interim government.
Addis Ababa has acknowledged sending several hundred military trainers, while witnesses put the number of troops much higher, in the thousands.
Somalia's transitional government has little authority outside its base of Baidoa.
Islamist forces, meanwhile, have seized increasing amounts of territory since winning a battle for Mogadishu in June.
Somalia has been without an effective central authority since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and turned on each other, plunging the country into chaos.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
Source: VOA, Dec 08, 2006