Agence France Presse report

At least three people were killed when Ethiopian soldiers attacked and captured the Somali town of Garbaharey in Gedo region of southern Somalia on Monday, a faction official said here. The official in Somalia’s capital said that the attack was carried out by a mechanised column of some 500 Ethiopian troops, according to residents contacted by radio. The population of the town was fleeing to peaceful nearby villages, said the official, who asked not to be named but identified one of the dead as a young man called Roble Abdulahi Sahal.

Garbaharey is a stronghold of the Marehan subclan loyal to the divided Somali National Front (SNF) faction. Militia sources said that SNF fighters loyal to General Omar Haji Mohamed “Masale” had retreated after learning earlier that the town was about to be attacked by Ethiopian forces, supported by armoured personnel carriers. SNF officials told AFP that the Ethiopians launched the attack from Luuq town, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Garbaharey. Luuq was captured by Ethiopia last month with the help of a rival SNF faction, led by Ahmed Shiekh Ali Burale.

The Gedo regional capital, Garbaharey, is the largest town so far captured by Ethiopian forces, which has crossed into Somalia several times since 1996, to pursue the armed Al-Itihad al-Islam fundamentalist group, alleged by Ethiopia to have bases inside Somalia, from where they carry out guerrilla attacks across the Ethiopian border.

A Somali warlord, Hussein Haji Bod, who controls part of north Mogadishu, on Sunday justified the intervention of Ethiopian troops across the border. He declared that some Somali factions have brought in rebels seeking to overthrow the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.