MOGADISHU, Feb 3: Ethiopian troops who left Somalia last month after a more than two-year intervention have crossed back over the border and set up a checkpoint near a town held by Islamic militants, residents said on Tuesday.

Addis Ababa denied their version as false and malicious.

Residents in the town of Baladwayne, near the Ethiopia border, said soldiers had entered about 20 km into Somalia to join forces with former rulers of Baladwayne whom the hardline insurgent al Shabaab group ousted at the end of 2008.

“We have been frightened for the last 36 hours because Ethiopian troops and the ousted Baladwayne authorities have come closer,” local elder Abdirizak Ali told Reuters from Baladwayne town, which al Shabaab insurgents have held since late 2008.“We anticipate attacks from those troops.”

Addis Ababa has said it is keeping a heavy troop presence on the border in case of threats to its security.

But it denied crossing back after its highly-publicised withdrawal from Somalia was completed on Jan 26.

“This is absolutely false. The army is within the Ethiopian border. There is no intention to go back,” minister and chief government spokesman Bereket Simon said.

“The report is a wicked attempt to detract attention from the new development in Somalia.”

Although the presence or not of Ethiopian soldiers on Somali soil is a highly sensitive subject for both nations, diplomats have said privately they would not be surprised if Addis Ababa made some minor incursions to deter the Islamist rebels.

Al Shabaab took advantage of Ethiopia’s final pullout of Somalia a week ago to take more towns and increase its territorial control in the south.—Reuters