Mogadishu, November 02 2006 – Somalia's powerful Islamists and weak government poured fighters and military hardware into front-line positions on Thursday, preparing for war after peace talks failed, witnesses said.

A day after negotiations in the Sudanese capital collapsed, both sides reinforced troops on land outside the government seat of Baidoa, where, for a second day running, they fired into the air in shows of force, they said.

Islamist commander Mursal Haji Ali, speaking from the village of Moote Moote where his forces are gathering, said his fighters were ready for war with the government and Ethiopian troops allegedly backing them.

"Our Mujahadeen are now ready in frontline trenches and all other fighters have reinforced the warzone because the enemy of Allah is keen on a full-scale attack," he said.

Hundreds of civilians fled the 20km area separating the rival camps ensconced in the government-held town of Deynunay, about 22km east of Baidoa, and in Moote Moote, they said.

As fears mounted for all-out war that could embroil the Horn of Africa in wider conflict, possibly drawing in arch-foe neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea, terrified residents of the area said they expected fighting to begin soon.

"I saw 25 armed vehicles with more than 100 militiamen heading to Moote Moote," said Adan Isak Nurow, a resident of the nearby town of Burhakaba, where the Islamists have been massing forces.

"It is clear that heavy fighting will start soon because the Islamist militias have been preparing themselves for the last two days," he said by phone from Burhakaba.

In Deynunay, resident Ali Juma Duale said the government was also "sending more men to the frontline" and that its forces had stepped up checks of the few vehicles attempting to travel to Baidoa.

Daadir Abdillahi Mohamed - a truck driver who regularly drives the route from Baidoa to Mogadishu, which the Islamists seized in June and have used as a base to expand their territory throughout south and central Somalia - said he would no longer make the journey.

"I will not drive to Mogadishu from now on because I have seen what is going on around the areas where the Islamists and the government are facing off," he said from Baidoa, about 250km from the capital.

As the two foes faced off, the Islamists accused Ethiopia of sending at least 12 000 troops to Somalia to attack them.

"They are going to attack us and take our country and that will not happen by the wishes of Allah," said Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, head of the executive arm of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS).

"We are not going to wait any longer for Ethiopia to take hold of our territory," he said in Mogadishu to thousands of soldiers from the former Somali army who have pledged to fight for the Islamists.

Mainly Christian Ethiopia denies charges it has thousands of soldiers in Somalia but acknowledges sending military advisers to help protect the government from "jihadists", some of whom are accused of links with al-Qaeda.

In Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian foreign ministry said Thursday that "extremists" in the Islamist movement were "making conflict inevitable" and blamed them for the failure of the peace talks in Khartoum.

Source: Sapa-AFP