ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Addis Adaba acknowledged on Wednesday its military personnel had been carrying out “reconnaissance” missions into neighbouring Somalia where any incursions from Ethiopia always inflame passions.
Ethiopia sent thousands of troops into Somalia in 2006 to help topple an Islamist movement controlling Mogadishu and most of the south. That drew protests from some in the Muslim world and infuriated the Islamists, who regrouped to launch an insurgency.
Ethiopia pulled out early this year, but kept a heavy border presence to counter any threat from the Islamists, who are battling to topple the Western-backed Somali government.
“When there is a threat, you can send some scouts here and there,” Bereket Simon, Ethiopian government’s head of information, told reporters in the first confirmation from Addis Ababa that it had sent people back in.
Witnesses on the Somali side of the border have spoken of seeing hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers, with heavy equipment.
Bereket denied that.
“Apart from doing reconnaissance, which is normal in these circumstances, the government of Ethiopia is not engaged in any way in Somalia … When the terrorists and the extremists were moving fast, we’ve been standing on alert on our border and following what is happening.”
The militant al Shabaab movement is spearheading Somalia’s insurgency, and has regained control of some areas of the south.
The government has, however, been beating back al Shabaab from some of its strongholds in Mogadishu. The rebels have been joined by hundreds of foreign jihadists, Somalis say.
“After a brief offensive by al Shabaab and some misfits of the world in Somalia, we have observed that the Transitional Federal Government has been able to withhold the movement of al Shabaab through central Somalia,” Bereket said.
“There has been a brief counter offensive by the TFG which indicates all is not rosy for al Shabaab. The terrorists have lost momentum for the time being.”
