Somalia braces for war

Ethiopian military personnel landed at a Somali airbase yesterday as the country's newly empowered Islamists withdrew from talks many hoped would stop Somalia's slide toward war.

Witnesses in recent days have reported seeing Ethiopian troops mobilised to defend the fragile Somali government's provincial base in Baidoa against Islamist militia advancing from Mogadishu.

Residents and aid workers in the southwestern town of Wajid said Ethiopian soldiers seized the airport from gunmen serving the local authorities overnight, before receiving two helicopters carrying Ethiopian forces on Saturday afternoon.

"Ethiopian military have been landing at the airport," said one Wajid resident, who did not want to be named.

Diplomats fear Somalia is on the verge of major conflict after Islamist militia moved their closest to Baidoa this week. The Islamist leadership, vowing holy war, has called on the Horn of African nation of 10 million to prepare to fight against the foreign troops, as Addis Ababa threatened to crush any attack on its ally, President Abdullahi Yusuf's government.

Hopes of a quick diplomatic breakthrough were dashed after a senior Islamist leader said a second round of talks, due to take place in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, had been suspended. Foreign powers hoped the Arab League-brokered negotiations would stop an increasingly belligerent standoff between the two sides from spiralling into war.

"We do not negotiate with a government which is being helped by the enemy of Somalia," Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said in a letter to Islamist delegates to the talks in reference to Ethiopia. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.