MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic fighters using irrigation canals as fortifications battled advancing Somali and Ethiopian government troops Wednesday with artillery, mortars and heavy machine guns as they defended a major town on the road to the capital, witnesses said.

Islamic Courts soldiers' bodies lie near Idale, Somalia, Sunday, Dec.24, 2006. [AP]

The militia, which wants to rule Somalia according to Islamic law, stopped what their leaders called a tactical retreat in the village of Jimbale, 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Mogadishu. They were defending the major town of Jowhar, residents said.

"The fighting has started, the two sides are using heavy weapons we have never heard before," Naimo Abdi Aden said by telephone.

Hundreds of people began fleeing Jowhar, anticipating major fighting, but others seemed resigned to it after suffering from drought and flooding over the last two years.

"We do not know where to escape, we are already suffering from floods, hunger and disease," said Abdale Haji Ali from Jowhar. "We are awaiting death."

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he had been given unconfirmed reports that as many as 1,000 people had died and 3,000 were wounded.

"Some of them are Somalis, but a very significant proportion of them are not Somalis," Meles told reporters Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, referring to foreign Islamic radicals who have reportedly joined the fighting.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported 850 people injured at hospitals supported by the relief agency, but had no figure for fatalities.

Meles said his forces, which entered Somalia in large numbers Saturday, had completed about half their mission. He said there are only 3,000 to 4,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia - "but no more."

Ethiopia sent fighter jets across the border Sunday to help Somalia's UN-recognized government push back the Islamists.

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a senior leader of the Islamic group, said he asked his troops to tactically retreat in the face of superior Ethiopian firepower.

"The war is entering a new phase," Ahmed said from Mogadishu. "We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace."

1

2