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Ethiopia said its forces backing the weak Somali government had dealt a massive blow to retreating Islamists after days of battles that claimed more than 1,000 lives.
As the world got increasingly concerned at the hostilities the UN Security Council met to consider issuing a statement demanding an immediate end to military operations in Somalia and the withdrawal of foreign forces, particularly Ethiopian.
As Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he was halfway to a decisive victory in Somalia, Islamists rallied domestic support to tackle allied Ethiopian and government troops, whom they accused of massacring civilians.
And, as rivals girded for fresh fighting in Jowhar, a provincial outpost north of Mogadishu, the United States threw its weight behind Ethiopia, saying it had “genuine security concerns with regard to developments within Somalia.”
“We got reports of more than 3,000 wounded in a Mogadishu hospital. Those who died are well over 1,000,” Meles told a press conference in Addis Ababa, two days after Ethiopia acknowledged military intervention in Somalia.
The figure could not be independently confirmed as the Islamists have claimed killing hundreds, but AFP correspondents have seen huge numbers of bodies on the frontlines.
The Islamists were forced to withdraw from many front-line positions in seven days of heavy fighting, but vowed to dig in for a long war with Ethiopia.
“The Ethiopian forces have massacred people in the areas they have taken,” Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the head of the Islamist executive committee, told a press conference in Mogadishu.
“We have called on the former Somali military men to join the Jihad, I assure you that we will never stop the fighting until we liberate our country,” he added.
Meles said his force had “broken the back” of the foreign-backed Islamists and forced them into “full retreat” in the wake of air strikes and ground duels.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said more than 800 wounded were reported at hospitals the agency was in contact with, while thousands have fled their homes.
The UN refugee agency called for protection of civilians, but lamented a mass displacement was unwanted in a country beset by natural disasters and conflicts.
The weak government holds only one major town, Baidoa, in the southern central region, while the Islamists in June seized Mogadishu from warlords and then extended their control over south and central Somalia.
Government fighters began to advance against the Islamist movement after Ethiopian warplanes bombed Mogadishu airport and other airfields to cut supply lines.
Meles said he was not targeting the seizure of Mogadishu, though Somalia's ambassador to Ethiopia Abdelkarin Farah said government troops were within 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the city.
But Jowhar prepared for conflict.
“Islamic fighters are in trenches … I think the fighting will start tonight … because heavily armed forces from Ethiopia and the Somali government are marching towards our town,” Abdulqani Ali, a Jowhar resident, told AFP.
Meles said he had deployed between 3,000 to 4,000 troops, contrary to a UN reports that accused Addis Ababa of deployed 8,000 troops and its regional rival Eritrea of sending 2,000 to back the Islamists.
Mainly Christian Ethiopia justified intervention on the grounds that the Islamists represent a direct threat to its own security and sovereignty, and has aligned with Washington in linking their radical leaders with the Al-Qaeda network.
The US urged Ethiopia to exercise “maximum restraint in intervening or responding to developments in Somalia and to assure the protection of civilians.”
Heavy fighting began last week after the Islamists demanded the departure of Ethiopian troops supporting the UN-backed, but feeble government in a country of 10 million people wracked by conflict since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
At the United Nations the 15-member council mulled a non-binding statement, drafted by Qatar, which chairs the council this month, demanding that “Ethiopia immediately withdraw its forces and cease its military operations inside Somalia.”
Kenya told Ethiopia to stop the military operations, saying they would solve nothing.
Nairobi, a key peacemaker in the region, said it was organising an emergency meeting of regional countries.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference told Addis Ababa to cease the “hostilities (which) had the potential to engulf the entire region and even beyond.”
The Addis Ababa-based African Union, which Monday called for a quick end to the fighting, appeared to back Ethiopia, despite plans to host crisis talks on Wednesday among regional nations and the Arab League.
“The AU recognises that Ethiopia was threatened by the Islamic courts and we acknowledge its rights to self defence,” Patrick Mazimhaka, the bloc's deputy commissioner told AFP.
