WASHINGTON, Jan 8: The United States quietly poured millions of dollars of weapons and sent military advisers into Ethiopia to prepare it for driving Islamic militants out of Somalia, the US media reported on Monday.

By encouraging Ethiopia to invade Somalia, the US has opened a new front in the war on terrorism, the reports said.

According to these reports, Ethiopia has received nearly $20 million in US military aid since late 2002. That's more than any country in the region except Djibouti, where the US maintains a military base.

Last month, thousands of Ethiopian troops invaded neighbouring Somalia and helped overturn a Muslim militant government that the Bush administration said was supported by Al Qaeda.

The US and Ethiopian militaries have "a close working relationship," Pentagon spokesman Lt Cmdr Joe Carpenter said. The ties include intelligence sharing, arms aid and training that gives the Ethiopians "the capacity to defend their borders and intercept terrorists and weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Advisers from Guam, a US protectorate, have been training Ethiopians in basic infantry skills at two camps in Ethiopia, said Maj Kelley Thibodeau, a spokeswoman for US forces in Djibouti. There are about 100 US military personnel currently working in Ethiopia, Mr Carpenter said.

Somalia has been the region's primary concern for the US government since the early 1990s. US troops, sent to Somalia as part of a peacekeeping and humanitarian mission, withdrew in 1994 after a failed attempt to capture a clan leader led to the deaths of 18 US soldiers in 1993.

The country has had no central government since 1991. The capital, Mogadishu, has been controlled by a series of warlords. A Muslim militant movement called the Islamic Courts consolidated power by defeating the warlords six months ago.

Ethiopia responded in December, invading to oust the Islamic Courts and prop up a government backed by the United Nations and Western countries.

At least 8,000 Ethiopian troops remain in Somalia, according to United Nations observers.

The Bush administration understands that Ethiopia's intervention "is against international terrorism, not against Islam," said Samuel Assefa, Ethiopia's ambassador to the United States.

The close US-Ethiopia ties, however, are criticised by human rights activists who say that it would encourage the current Ethiopian government to further repress its own people.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch says that Ethiopian security forces fatally shot, beat or strangled 193 people who protested election fraud in 2005.

At least 96 prisoners, including several opposition leaders, journalists and the former mayor of Addis Ababa, face charges of treason, plotting to commit genocide and inciting violence.