Several rounds of peace talks failed to yield any lasting results.

Major fighting broke out Tuesday night, but had tapered off before Sunday's battles began before dawn and continued for about 10 hours.

Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu said before Meles' announcement that Ethiopian soldiers were fighting alongside Somali government soldiers in Dinsoor, Belet Weyne, Bandiradley and Bur Haqaba.

Witnesses said a major road and an Islamic recruiting center were bombed in Belet Weyne, and 12 Ethiopian soldiers were reportedly captured nearby.

"We saw 12 blindfolded men and were told they were Ethiopian prisoners captured in the battle," said Abdi Fodere, a businessman in Belet Weyne.

Less serious fighting also was reported in Baidoa.

"I think they have met a resistance they have never dreamt of before," interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said in brief remarks as the fighting began to die down at Baidoa.

Suley, the official with the Islamic movement, said his forces had destroyed four Ethiopian tanks outside the city.

As Sunday's fighting wore on, the Islamic militia began broadcasting patriotic songs in Mogadishu about Somalia's 1977 war with Ethiopia. The two countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.

Meles has said his government has a legal and moral obligation to support Somalia's internationally recognized government. He also accuses the Islamic movement of backing ethnic Somali rebels fighting for independence from Ethiopia and has called such support an act of war.

Leaders of the Islamic militia have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

The fighting is hitting a country already devastated by conflict. One in five children dies before age 5 from a preventable disease, and the impoverished nation is struggling to recover from eastern Africa's worst flood season in 50 years.

Government officials and Islamic militiamen have said hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting since Tuesday, but the claims could not be independently confirmed. Aid groups put the death toll in the dozens.

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