Word: ethiopian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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What has suddenly become the world's hottest war is raging in he Horn of Africa between the Ethiopian army and Somali guerrillas who are backed by their ethnic cousins in the Somali Democratic Republic, and the tide of battle changed dramatically last week. Five months ago, the Somali guerrillas had all but driven Addis Ababa's forces out of the Ogaden desert (see map), an Ethiopian region inhabited largely by Somali nomads. Now Ethiopia has launched a spirited counterattack to regain the Ogaden-and perhaps drastically upset a complex balance of forces throughout the entire region...
...massive Communist aid that has made the difference in the fortunes of war. For weeks, some 25 Soviet naval vessels have been standing by in the Red Sea off Eritrea province, where the Ethiopians are fighting a civil war against three liberation fronts. The Russian flotilla is presumably there to protect a Soviet sea lift to the Ethiopian-held port of Assab. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian air force, probably assisted by Cuban pilots, has been conducting bombing raids on the Somali city of Hargeisa and the port of Berbera, where the Soviets had a missile and naval base until the Somalis...
...week's end the Ethiopians were reported to have swept 20 miles to Babile and taken positions to the south and east of Jijiga, from which they had been driven last August. The Somalis admitted that their forces in the Ogaden were in a "tactical retreat," and on Thursday the Mogadishu government called for general mobilization "in the face of a threatened Ethiopian invasion...
MADAWEIN, Ethiopia--Ethiopian air and artillery forces heavily bombarded Somali positions along the Ogaden battle front, driving the Somali troops from strategic positions on the road to the Ethiopian outpost at Harar...
Since November, Ethiopian troops have held the Somalian soldiers, just short of Harar, where Ethiopia has amassed its new Soviet weaponry for a counter-offensive it hopes will reverse the losses of the last six months...