After months of more or less veiled threats, Sunday Ethiopian troops stationed in Somalia and the militias close to the Islamic Courts clashed for the first time on the outskirts of Mogadishu, calling into being the specter of a new conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Clashes. The moment so much feared arrived in the morning: a convoy of twenty-one Ethiopian military vehicles, heading for Baidoa, ran over two mines in the vicinity of Bardaleh, a city 85 kilometers southwest of the capital, Mogadishu. According to what was said by a spokesman of the Courts, in the following clashes six Ethiopian soldiers died—a version confirmed by the residents of Bardaleh but not by the Somali and Ethiopian governments, which have preferred not to comment on the news. The survivors of the convoy were supposed to have reached Baidoa that evening, the southern city that is the seat of the institutions of transition surrounded by the men of the Courts.

Ethiopia. Until now, notwithstanding the warlike proclamations made by both parties, the Courts and the Ethiopian Army have succeeded in avoiding each other. Stationed prudently at Baidoa, the Ethiopians had reached the maximum in giving support to the government troops in the sporadic clashes taking place with the militias of the Courts, who, with Sunday’s attack, decided to raise the level of the conflict. Now the ball passes to the Ethiopian government, that will have to decide whether to respond blow for blow, thus risking setting off a regional war, or whether  to put a good face on a bad game. Until now, in fact, the Ethiopian presence in Somalia has been low profile: the premier of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, has admitted more times the presence of other military contingents charged with training the local army without however confirming the spread of thousands of forces near the region of Baidoa, denounced instead by the Courts.

Baidoa. A version confirmed by witnesses from the local population, who speak of a substantial augmentation of Ethiopian contingents in Somalia in the last weeks. If one adds that the Courts have recently amassed hundreds of combatants in Baidoa, one understands the seriousness of the situation. On one side, in fact, Zenawi is not disposed to see the present Somali government fall, one of the few allies of Addis Ababa in the region; on the other, the Courts maintain an ambiguous attitude in the confrontations with Somali authority, composed of periodic offensives interspersed with diplomatic overtures that, up until now, have led to little. The attack on Sunday might have precluded for the Courts the possibility of  playing a double game.

Negotiations. The situation is so grave that Monday François Fall, the special envoy of the UN for Somalia, arrived in Baidoa for urgent talks with the president, Abdullahi Yusuf, and the premier, Mohammed Ghedi. The objective is that of restarting peace negotiations with the Courts after, last week, the mediation attempted by the spokesman of Parliament was openly repudiated by the government. It will be difficult for Fall to succeed in extracting something more from the talks, given the radicalizing of positions in the last weeks. For the first time, a holy war launched by the Courts against Ethiopia no longer seems an empty threat.