From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Sun Jan 03 2010 - 16:01:17 EST
Eritrea claims Ethiopia attack
2010-01-03 18:10
Addis Ababa - Eritrea accused arch-foe Ethiopia on Sunday of launching
attacks along their disputed border but said its troops had driven off
the assault, killing 10 Ethiopian soldiers and capturing two.
The Eritrean foreign affairs ministry said soldiers from Ethiopia's
ruling Tigrai People's Liberation Front (TPLF) had attacked on Friday in
the Zalambesa area. Ethiopian officials were not immediately available
for comment.
"In the early morning hours of January 1st 2010, TPLF soldiers launched
successive attacks in the Zalambesa front and were swiftly driven back,"
the ministry said in a statement on its website.
Zalambesa lies in the centre of the contested frontier, over which
neighbours fought a brutal war in the late 1990s.
80 000 die in war
"Ten of their soldiers (were) killed and two captured, leaving six AK-47
automatic rifles, a machine gun and communication equipment," the
statement said.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's TPLF party is the main member of
the ruling coalition and was a close ally of the Eritrean government
before they fell out prior to the border war.
About 80 000 people died in the 1998-2000 border conflict, many in
brutal World War I-style trench warfare.
A UN-backed boundary commission charged with demarcating the border has
handed the disputed town of Badme to Eritrea but Addis Ababa has refused
to recognise the ruling.
In August the Hague-based Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission ordered
Asmara to pay $10m in damages sustained during the conflict, a decision
Asmara has pledged to comply with.
- AFP
http://www.news24.com/Content/Africa/News/965/146921c1f34c4c558caccf47b3
5c9a9d/03-01-2010-06-10/Eritrea_claims_Ethiopia_attack
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