About 300 Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia yesterday, a top Islamist said, after Islamic fighters who wrested control of Mogadishu moved inland toward the seat of Somalia's interim government.
Ethiopia immediately denied sending soldiers in but warned the Islamists not to cross the border, where reports say Ethiopia has been massing soldiers for days.
Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord, is closely allied with Addis Ababa, which was instrumental in his election after peace talks in Kenya in 2004.
"There are Ethiopian troops just past the border and coming in. Ethiopia is on an offensive passing our borders and bringing war to us," Islamic Courts Union Chairman Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told reporters, referring to an incursion in Dollow in southwest Somalia.
Ethiopia denied entering Somalia.
Ahmed said troops had been crossing in and out further north in Mudug region and the Hiran region, where Baladwayne is. Bereket declined to say if troops were on the border.
Dollow is at the intersection of the Kenyan, Ethiopian and Somali borders and on the road to Baidoa, where Somalia's weak interim government is based and has been increasingly surrounded by the Islamist militias.
Local officials there said about 50 armoured vehicles with Ethiopian soldiers had passed Dollow and 50 km further in at Luuq. There were conflicting reports on whether they were heading to Baidoa or Jowhar.
Ethiopia, Washington's top counterterrorism ally in the Horn of Africa, has backed warlords the Islamists routed from their strongholds in Mogadishu and elsewhere in a swift march from the capital to Baladwayne on the Ethiopian border.
Largely secular Ethiopia has long been wary of the influence of Islam in the region, and has not hesitated to send its military into Somalia before to fight Islamic forces.
The warlords were widely believed to have been financed with US money in their last stand against the Islamists, which killed 350 people in battles since February.
Earlier yesterday, Islamic court sources said two warlords, Bashir Raghe and Muse Sudi Yalahow, took a boat to a waiting US vessel which approached the Somali coast.