MOGADISHU (AFP) — Ethiopian forces who pulled out of Somalia four months ago returned to the war-torn country Tuesday after Islamist rebels launched an offensive to topple the fledgling government, witnesses said.

Ethiopia, however, denied returning to Somalia, where it had previously intervened to help the government defend itself against Islamists.

“No Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia,” Ethiopian state minister for communications Ermias Legesse told AFP.

Witnesses in Kalabeyrka village, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border with Ethiopia, reported seeing troops in dozens of armoured vehicles mounting roadblocks.

Somali truck driver Abdurahman Afey said: “Ethiopian forces have been checking vehicles in the Kalabeyrka area.

“They were asking people where they came from but they were not arresting anybody,” he said.

Another witness, Mohamed Sheikh Abdi, said he saw Ethiopian forces manning checkpoints in the village.

“They were many,” he said, adding that he saw armoured vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft weapons.

Fierce clashes between radical Islamist insurgents and government troops erupted earlier this month and the rebels have seized two key towns north of Mogadishu in as many days, sparking fears they would advance to Beledweyne.

Beledweyne is a regional capital controlled by militias who are loosely allied to President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s government and is the biggest town nearest to Kalabeyrka.

The rebel onslaught has been led by the Shebab, an extremist faction accused of links to Al-Qaeda, and Hezb al-Islam, a more political radical group loyal to top opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.

While admitting that the situation in Somalia was deteriorating, Ethiopian Communications Minister Bereket Simon said his country was “not contemplating going back there for the moment.”

“For the moment there is no immediate danger to Ethiopia,” he said.

But a senior African Union official said an Ethiopian re-deployment would not be a surprise.

“I would not be overly surprised that Ethiopians are intervening afresh because they cannot accept to have Islamist insurgents at the border,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“It is perhaps an intimidation tactic or the beginning of an intervention.”

AU Commission chief Jean Ping condemned the rebel attacks against the transitional government and said in a statement that he was “following with deep concern the evolution of the situation in Somalia.”

Ethiopian troops rolled into Somalia in late 2006 to buttress an embattled government against an Islamist movement then led by Sharif and Aweys.

Their withdrawal sparked fears of a security vacuum as fighters of the toppled Islamist movement waged relentless battles against them, government targets and a small African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu.

While Sharif later joined a UN-sponsored reconciliation process and was eventually elected president in January, Aweys has remained in the opposition and returned from exile last month to challenge his former ally.

Insurgents now control much of southern and central Somalia, with forces loyal to the internationally recognised government pushed back to a few remaining pockets in Mogadishu and close to the Ethiopian border.

Foreign ministers from the east African bloc the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development will hold emergency talks Wednesday on the crisis in Somalia. IGAD groups Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan and Uganda.

Regional and international efforts to end the crisis and establish a central government in the Horn of African country since the ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 have failed.

The latest fighting that began on May 7 has killed at least 110 people and displaced some 30,000, mainly in Mogadishu.