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11 January 2007
ASMARA (AFP) - Eritrea has warned that war will continue in Somalia as long troops from Ethiopia remain there, accusing its arch-foe neighbor of conducting US-backed "naked aggression" in the lawless nation.
Two days after US air strikes on suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts in Somalia, Asmara warned of more bloodshed if Washington and others continue to support the weak Somali government at the expense of other factions.
It also repeated vehement denials of reports from UN experts that Eritrea has sent 2,000 troops to support Somalia's Islamist movement, which was ousted from the capital and south by Ethiopian and Somali troops in heavy fighting.
"It (has become) evident that the Ethiopian troops' invasion of Somalia is indeed naked aggression with the active blessing of the United States," the state-run Eritrea Profile newspaper said.
"The war will not be finished until and unless the aggression of Ethiopia is reversed and all the different Somali factions come to the negotiating table to form a government of national unity," it said.
Ethiopia has justified its military intervention in Somalia, saying the Islamists, some of whom are accused of Al-Qaeda links, posed a threat to it after they declared holy war against Addis Ababa.
Analysts have expressed fears that Ethiopia and Eritrea, still at odds over their unresolved 1998-2000 border conflict, may fight a proxy war in Somalia but Asmara renewed previous denials of any such intention.
"Eritrea never took Somalia as a proxy war to its border problem with Ethiopia," the newspaper said in an editorial, adding that Asmara wanted only long elusive peace and stability for the Somali people.
"The alleged 2,000 Eritrean troops were found to be phantom troops that evaporated into oblivion," it said. "There is no valid evidence that Eritrea funded and armed the Union of Islamic Courts of Somalia."
At the same time, Eritrea said it opposed US-, UN- and African Union-backed plans to send east African regional peacekeepers to Somalia unless all sides, including the Islamists who fiercely oppose deployment, agree.
"The need for peacekeepers can be viable if, and only if, accepted by all the Somali factions," the Eritrea Profile said.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since 1991 and a transitional government set up two years ago had been severely challenged by the rise of a powerful Islamist movement.
The Islamists had taken control of much of southern and central Somalia since seizing Mogadishu in June but have since been repelled by Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops who invaded in December.
