And if things weren't bad enough: ETHIOPIA INVADES SOMALIA

Al Jazeera reports: "Hundreds of Ethiopian troops in armoured vehicles have entered the central Somali town of Baidoa, home of the country's transitional government.

"Residents said Ethiopian troops arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up a camp near the president's home there. A spokesman for the transitional federal government denied that any Ethiopian soldiers were in the town and maintained the claims were part of an Islamist plot to launch an attack.

"'It is absolutely false," Abdirahman Nur Mohamed Dinari told AFP news agency. "Every time the Islamists want to attack, they start propagating rumours and manufacturing lies.'

"A top Islamic leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed responded to the reports saying: 'We will declare jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia.'"

The Concord Monitor reports: "Hundreds of Ethiopian troops in armored vehicles rolled into Somalia yesterday to protect their allies in this country's virtually powerless government from Islamic militants who control the capital.

"The move could give the U.S.-backed Somali government its only chance of curbing the Islamic militia's increasing power. But Ethiopia's incursion could also be just the provocation the militia needs to build public support for a guerrilla war.

"'We will declare jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia,' a top Islamic official, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, told the Associated Press."

Somali.Net reports: "The top security official of the Islamic Courts Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad known as ‘Indha-adde’ said on Thursday if Ethiopia invades Somalia capital then they would attack Addis Ababa, amid fears of possible confrontation between increasingly powerful Islamic militiamen and Ethiopian forces who entered Baidoa town, to defend the UN-backed Somalia government based there."

And here's the BBC's take.

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