Ethiopia was reported to have moved tanks and helicopters towards the front lines in Somalia yesterday as artillery and rocket battles continued for a fourth day between Islamist and government forces.
Dozens of fighters from both sides have been killed on two fronts near the government seat of Baidoa since this week's clashes began. Fighters loyal to the Somali Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) said yesterday that tanks from neighbouring Ethiopia, which is propping up Somalia's weak government, had shelled them for the first time. Baidoa residents also saw four Ethiopian helicopters flying towards the battlefield, Associated Press reported.
If the reports are true, it would mark a serious move towards outright war in the Horn of Africa. Yesterday, the Islamists who control Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia did little to dismiss such a possible escalation. "From tomorrow the [full-scale] attack will start," Ibrahim Shukri, an SCIC spokesman, told journalists in Mogadishu.
The latest round of fighting - the heaviest since the SCIC took the capital in June and began challenging the legitimacy of the transitional government - began on Tuesday, hours after the expiry of a deadline set by the courts for Ethiopian troops to leave the country. A European Union-brokered peace agreement on Wednesday failed to hold.
Yesterday, Ethiopian tanks were reported heading towards Daynunay, the government's forward military base, 12 miles south-east of Baidoa, where fierce fighting has taken place. There were also clashes reported on a second front around Idaale, 44 miles south-west of the city.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said dozens of people had been killed, and more than 200 wounded, since Wednesday. It could not say how many of these were civilians. Agency reports, quoting aid workers, said civilians were fleeing for the relative safety of Mogadishu. Ethiopia continues to deny that it has military forces in Somalia, but makes no secret of the fact that its sympathies lie with President Abdullahi Yusuf's secular transitional government.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, has branded the SCIC a terrorist organisation that threatens his country and the western world. The United States, which regards Ethiopia as an ally in its "war on terror", has made similar claims.
By continuing to expand its territorial control and talk of war, the SCIC has done little to advance its cause with the international community. Seen from afar, its military face-off with Ethiopia is a brave or foolish strategy. The SCIC has no air force or tanks, and is greatly outnumbered in trained soldiers.
But it has two powerful weapons: the popular dislike within Somalia for Ethiopia, and religion. Senior clerics in the movement are pitching it as a holy war against infidel invaders.
Some analysts say it is a war neither can win. Ethiopia may inflict severe damage on the battlefield, but can never destroy the support for the courts. The SCIC, for its part, is unlikely to be able to defeat Ethiopia militarily. And even if it did manage to topple the government in Baidoa, it would be seen as an international pariah, surrounded by hostile neighbours.
"Sooner or later the courts and the government will have to get back to the negotiating table," said Matt Bryden, a consultant to the International Crisis Group, based in Nairobi.
"They only question is how long this type of fighting can go on for."