More than 100 fighters and sympathisers of Somali warlord Hussein Mohamed Aidid, as well as 130 Ethiopian rebels of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), were captured in Baidoa on June 6 by the Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA).

However, the prisoners said that they had been kept at a factory compound in Baidoa under the guard of Ethiopian troops, who had joined the RRA in the battle for Baidoa.

"I was captured by Ethiopian troops in Baidoa on June 7, a day after heavy fighting between the RRA and Aidid's forces. The Ethiopians treated us in a very humane way, feeding the prisoners three times a day. I saw the Ethiopians giving medical treatment to my clansmen wounded in the battle," one of the prisoners, Mohamed Bulale Mahmud, told AFP here on Sunday.

Aidid's top lieutenants said the prisoners' accounts were the first independent confirmation of Ethiopian involvement in the fighting in Baidoa and other parts of southern Somalia.

Ethiopia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the fighting in Baidoa, which the RRA seized from Aidid on June 6.

Mahmud said that during his detention, he never saw RRA fighters or officials.

Mahmud, 46, said the deputy commander of Ethiopian forces in Baidoa, an ethnic Somali, assured the prisoners that they would not be mistreated.

"I then stopped panicking and felt relatively safe," said Mahmud, who described himself as a commercial lorry driver.

Mahmud said the Ethiopians were not targeting the Habr Gedir clansmen during the battle, but were mainly looking for OLF fighters who had joined Aidid's militia.

He said that the Oromo prisoners were severely mistreated and some of them were tortured before being taken to Ethiopia.

"I heard that before I was captured on June 7, some wounded Oromos had been killed by Ethiopian troops," Mahmud said.

Mahmud further said that the Ethiopians had saved his fellow inmates from being killed by the RRA, which wanted the elimination of all prisoners from the rival faction who have been fighting them the last four years.

Other released prisoners, including Aidid's personal driver, also said they had been taken into a military garrison of Ethiopian troops, 12 kilometers (seven miles) south of Baidoa, before their final release.

The Baidoa area has been the scene of battles since Hussein's father, the late General Mohamed Farah Aidid, captured the region from the local Rahanweins in 1995.

RRA spokesman Mohamed Aden Qalinle described Mahmud as a terrified and misguided militiaman, who could not differentiate between Ethiopians and RRA fighters.

"Mahmud's remarks were politically motivated to (discredit) the RRA. No Ethiopian troops joined us for the Baidoa battle," Qalinle said angrily on Sunday.

The appeal was made last month by Blaise Compaore, the president of Burkina Faso and current OAU chairman, in two letters to Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki.

Copies of the English translation of both letters, dated May 8 and May 20, were made available to Reuters by a diplomatic source on Saturday.

"I submit to you a solemn appeal in the name of the OAU... that you accept our proposal that the Eritrean government agree to redeploy its troops out of Ethiopian territories occupied after May 6, 1998," Compaore said in the first letter. The letters appear to support Ethiopia's position that Eritrea must pull out of Ethiopian territory before both sides sit down to discuss their rival claims on border territories. Eritrea has pressed for a ceasefire before troop withdrawals and border talks.

In his second letter to Isayas, Compaore said the OAU's main concern was creating favourable conditions, "notably a return to the status quo prior to May 6, 1998", for implementation of its peace plan.

"That done, our clear and renewed understanding is that this redeployment will not prejudge in any manner the claims held by either party regarding these areas," he said, adding that the peace proposal "called for delimitation and demarcation of the border".

The war between the Horn of Africa neighbours broke out on May 6 last year, with Eritrea seizing territory at different points along the 1,000-km (600 mile) border within the first month.

Fighting died down in June but reignited in February of this year. Ethiopia has since retaken the disputed Badme region but Eritrean units still occupy other areas seized in the first round of the war. Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have died in the war.

Both countries have accepted the OAU's peace plan but disagree over certain details.

The witnesses, who are close to businessmen involved in the deal, said the consignment was the third for Aidid from the Eritrean government.

The anti-aircraft heavy machine guns, German-made G-3 rifles and AK-47s as well as ammunition and explosives soon would be shipped 310 miles from Fah to Mogadishu, they said.

The 11-month border conflict between neighboring Ethiopia and Eritrea has spilled over into Somalia, aggravating the civil strife that has been widespread since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991 and the country descended into anarchy.

As in the late 1980s, Ethiopia and Eritrea are arming opposing clans. Eritrea supports Aidid and has sent Ethiopian Oromo rebels to cross Somalia in order to destabilize southern Ethiopia.

Osman Atto, also based in south Mogadishu, told AFP that a ship had docked at the coastal village of Faah in the central region of Galgudud and was unloading a consignment of Eritrean arms for Aidid.

"The ship and the weapons came from the Eritrean port city of Assab. I have enough evidence of that," he said. Osman Atto did not say what type of arms the vessel was allegedly carrying.

Osman Atto said the ship went to Faah, 450 kilometres (270 miles), north of Mogadishu, after villagers barred it from docking at Hobyo port, about 400 kilometres (180 miles) north of Mogadishu. Residents also prevented the vessel from stopping at the nearby El Huur village.

A spokesman for the Eritrean embassy in Nairobi denied that Asmara had shipped weapons to Somalia, saying the allegations were "part of a propaganda machinery" by the Ethiopian government.

"Eritrea would not condone violence in Somalia. We have no policy of sending weapons to other countries," Eritrean diplomat Kidane Woldeyesus told AFP.

A top official in Aidid's faction also denied the arms importation charges, calling them "fabricated lies by foreign-manipulated elements," an apparent reference to Somali factions friendly to Ethiopia, which is currently at war with Eritrea over their disputed border.

Osman Atto said unloading of the arms started late on Thursday and was expected to continue Friday.

The Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA), which seized the south-central town of Baidoa from Aidid on June 6 said the newly-arrived weapons would boost Aidid's capacity of waging war in the Bay region.

"Aidid might attack our strongholds. I wonder why Eritrea is sending firearms to Somalia," said RRA spokesman Mohamed Aden Qalinle.

He also announced that the RRA had released 32 of Aidid's fighters captured during the battle for Baidoa.

Aidid and factions allied to him captured the southern port town of Kismayo, allegedly with Eritrean help, from warlord General Mohamed Said Hirsi "Morgan", five days after losing Baidoa.

Aidid's rivals in Somalia and Ethiopia have repeatedly accused Eritrea of providing arms to the south Mogadishu strongman since mid-January through the southern Indian Ocean coastal town of Merca and the Balidogle airstrip, 90 kilometres (some 55 miles), southwest of Mogadishu.

A press statement issued here by the office of the Ethiopian government spokesperson Selome Taddesse claimed that the Ethiopian forces put "3, 420 enemy forces out of action" during the four-day fighting.

The office also accused one Eritrean brigade of initiating another offensive on the right wing of the main Mereb River Thursday.

It claimed that the Ethiopian forces "successfully repelled this attack" and "130 Eritrean military personnel were killed, wounded or captured".

The latest border fighting on the vicinity of the Mereb River between Ethiopian and Eritrean forces started on June 9, this year. Both sides accused the other side of starting the attack and claimed putting "over 20, 000 enemy soldiers" out of action during the latest military engagement.

Over the last three months, Aideed has taken delivery of 40 billion Somali shillings ($400,000) in notes printed in Canada to distribute among his supporters in southern Somalia, local residents in the southern town of Jowhar said this week.

Since Somalia's central government collapsed in 1991, the country has been ruled by guns touted by rival militia groups, each loyal to one of a complex array of warlords.

There is no central authority responsible for printing money, issuing passports and other documents of sersonnel in Baghdad clear of what it called American agents.