ETHIOPIA: Ethiopian troops pursue rebels into neighbouring Eritrea who attacked a military post

Record ID: 353619

  • Title: ETHIOPIA: Ethiopian troops pursue rebels into neighbouring Eritrea who attacked a military post
  • Date: 16th March 2012
  • Summary: ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (MARCH 15, 2012) (REUTERS) ETHIOPIA GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN, SHIMELIS KEMAL HOLDING NEWS CONFERENCE CAMERAMAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) ETHIOPIA GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN, SHIMELIS KEMAL, SAYING: "Our National Defense Force has today taken this measure against military posts in which subversive and anti-Ethiopian forces that have been supported, sponsored, or
  • Embargoed: 31st March 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ethiopia, Ethiopia
  • Country: Ethiopia
  • Topics: Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVAE2IX818M448JWX0SGS1H6ZGA8
  • Story Text: Ethiopia attacked rebel bases inside neighbouring Eritrea on Thursday (March 15), accusing its arch-foe of training fighters who have staged raids, including a January attack that killed five Western tourists.
    It was the first attack by Ethiopian troops inside Eritrea since the end of a 1998-2000 war that killed 70,000 people and still festers, because the frontier dispute that ignited the conflict remains unresolved.
    Ethiopia routinely accuses Asmara of supporting Ethiopian separatist groups. It blamed an Afar rebel movement for the kidnapping of Westerners in its northern Afar region in 2007, and again for the attack in the same area in January.
    "Our National Defense Force has today taken this measure against military posts in which subversive and anti-Ethiopian forces that have been supported, sponsored, organised and trained by the Eritrean government," government spokesman Shimeles Kemal told a news briefing in Adis Ababa.
    Gunmen killed two Germans, two Hungarians and an Austrian in a dawn attack on a group of tourists in the remote Afar region on Jan. 17, and seized two Germans and two Ethiopians.
    A rebel group in the Afar region said last week it had freed the two German tourists, although there has been no official confirmation of the release.
    "Certainly these camps, these military posts, were used by anti-Ethiopian forces (for) launching several attacks inside Ethiopia as similar to the recent attack taken against European tourists," the spokesperson added.
    He said Ethiopian soldiers attacked three places - Ramid, Gelahbe and Gimbi - 16 km (10 miles) inside southeastern Eritrea.
    After the border war, The Hague-based Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission ruled in 2002 that the border village of Badme belonged to Eritrea.
    However, the village remains in Ethiopia and Eritrea blames the international community and the United Nations in particular, for not forcing Ethiopia to accept the border ruling.
    Tensions along the frontier rose sharply in November 2005 as both countries moved up troops. By January 2006, Ethiopia had complied with a U.N. demand to withdraw its soldiers.
    According to Ethiopia, if Eritrea dared to launch an attacked aimed at them, the results will be disastrous as their forces cannot match them.
    "The Eritrean defense force is not in a position to launch counter attack against Ethiopia and were they to try to so, the results would be disastrous," Shimeles said.
    The United Nations has also slapped sanctions on Eritrea, accusing it of supporting Islamist rebels in Somalia, a charge the Red Sea state strongly denies.
    Despite the repeated denials that it is not a destabilising force in the volatile Horn of Africa region, Eritrea is widely regarded in the international community as a pariah state and is deeply mistrusted by its neighbours.
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