Mogadishu, Feb 3 : Ethiopian troops who left Somalia last month after a more than two-year intervention have crossed back over the border and set up a checkpoint near a town held by Islamic militants, residents said on Tuesday. Addis Ababa denied their version as false and malicious.
Residents in the town of Baladwayne, near the Ethiopia border, said soldiers had entered about 12 miles into Somalia to join forces with former rulers of Baladwayne whom the hardline insurgent al Shabaab group ousted at the end of 2008.
"We have been frightened for the last 36 hours because Ethiopian troops and the ousted Baladwayne authorities have come closer," local elder Abdirizak Ali said from Baladwayne town, which al Shabaab insurgents have held since late 2008.
"We anticipate attacks from those troops."
Addis Ababa has said that it is keeping a heavy troop presence on the border in case of threats to its security.
But it denied crossing back after its highly-publicised withdrawal from Somalia was completed on January 26.
"This is absolutely false. The Army is within the Ethiopian border. There is no intention to go back," minister and chief government spokesman Bereket Simon said.
"The report is a wicked attempt to detract attention from the new development in Somalia."
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