ADDIS ABABA, March 15 (Reuters) - Ethiopia attacked rebel bases inside
neighbouring Eritrea on Thursday, 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 defence force has today taken measures against military posts
inside Eritrea in which subversive and anti-peace elements were trained,"
government spokesman Shimeles Kemal told reporters.
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 had freed the two German
tourists, although there has been no official confirmation of the release.
"These groups are operating in the Afar area. We know for certain that the
Eritrean government harbours, supports, trains and deploys subversive groups
that occasionally launch attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets
inside Ethiopia," he said.
Shimeles said Ethiopian soldiers attacked three places - Ramid, Gelahbe and
Gimbi - 16 km (10 miles) inside southeastern Eritrea. "We will continue our
measures as long as they remain a launching pad for similar attacks," he
said. (Editing by David Clarke)
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Received on Thu Mar 15 2012 - 10:38:52 EDT
