Few of the detainees are officers.

During lengthy interviews, it emerged that the fighters, aged between 16 and 45, had come to fight in Ethiopia by way of Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Yemen.

Many told very similar tales of having been initially trained in Eritrea and then undergoing additional training in areas of Somalia under the control of Hussein Mohammed Aidid before crossing the border into Ethiopia by foot.

"Aidid told us he supported us and would help us get our land back," one of the prisoners said.

While Eritrea and Somalia have frequently been linked to such rebel groups, never before has such strong evidence emerged about the extent of the recruiting network.

Most of the 227 rebels captured over recent months and held since Tuesday at a detention centre in Zewai, 165 kilometers (100 miles) south of Addis Ababa, are members of the separatist Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) while others fought for Al Ittihad and for Tokuchuma.

Some members of the OLF said they had been introduced in Somalia to Gelassa Dilbo, the leader of the movement, which Addis Ababa this month said it had decisively crushed.

Some recalled having engaged Ethiopian troops on border areas within Somalia, a country which has been without central government and seen much clan strife since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

Many said they had been promised weapons and money once they arrived in Ethiopia.

Adam Jenete, 25, originally from Harar in eastern Ethiopia, was living in Djibouti when the OLF approached him.

"They asked us if we wanted to work in the fields in Yemen. But first we we went to (the Eritrean Red Sea port) Assab, then to Eritrean army training camps," he said.

"We were then 470 in number and we were taken by boat for eight days and eight nights to Merca, on the Somalian coast. After a few days in a Somali camp at Korele we were taken to the Ethiopian border," he continued.

Ethiopia has been at war with Eritrea since May last year.

Berhanu Gerbi, 24, said he was among 53 people who left Yemen to join the OLF in Somalia.

Yemeni authorities have yet to react to the press reports in Ethiopia of fighters being recruited from its territory. Hassan Ousman, 16, is a member of the small Tokuchuma ("Unity") group. "I am fighing for my country," he told AFP in Somali.

His comrades explained that the group was formed seven months ago and comprised about 100 members. It seeks the independence of the Oromo region and is led by General Wako Guto, who had fought for the same cause during the reign of the emperor Haile Selasse.

Its members, mostly captured four months ago at Imme, Gireti and around Gode, in southeast Ethiopia, say the group is more Islamic than others fighting for the same cause.

Ethiopia has repeatedly accused Asmara of opening up another front in this area, through its support of rebel groups.

Amin Ibrahim Ali, 30, one of 207 prisoners of war interned at a camp at the lakeside town of Zuwai 160 km (100 miles) south of Addis Ababa, said he was captured in fighting near the Somalia border.

Amin, an ethnic Oromo from Dire Dawa, eastern Ethiopia, said his 300-strong OLF fighter group crossed from Somalia last month. Its mission was to destabilise the region with the aim of bringing down the present government of Ethiopia.

``We were ordered to blow up bridges, plant land mines, murder local officials and recruit young men to join the OLF,'' he told reporters.

``Fighting erupted and we dispersed in confusion and disarray,'' he said. ``Many were killed, others captured and the rest fled back into Somalia.''

Amin said he was trained in warfare at Afambo, 200 km (120 miles) north of Eritrea's Red Sea Port of Assab, by Eritrean officers -- including a Major who had served in the former Ethiopian army.

After training, they moved to Koryole, Somalia -- a stronghold of Somali warlord Hussein Aideed -- to join other OLF fighters.

Aideed addressed them before they moved into Ethiopia, he said.

``Hussein Aideed pledged full support for our cause until the present Ethiopian government is overthrown and an OLF government is set up,'' he said.

Another captive, Worku Tekle, 33, an ethnic Amhara and a former soldier, said he was forced to join the OLF after being arrested in Yemen, where he was working.

``We were taken in a boat to Afambo in Eritrea for military training,'' he said.

An Eritrean News Agency report quoted the minister as making the appeal in Asmara Thursday at a briefing with the diplomatic community.

The minister recalled the recent visit of OAU envoy Ahmed Ouyahia who delivered ''the official document that clearly articulates the clarifications of the OAU in response to questions raised by Ethiopia relating to the technical arrangements.''

Haile pointed out that Eritrea had already accepted, in full, the three documents comprising the peace package, which include the Framework Agreement, the Modalities for Implementation, and the Technical Arrangements.

He noted that ''Ethiopia has refused to accept the third document,'' which is ''merely an elaboration and technical details of the two political documents endorsed at the OAU summit level'' in Algiers.

The reported incursion provides fresh evidence of a new troublespot in Ethiopia's border war with Eritrea, which could further destabilise Somalia, a country without central government since 1991.

Ethiopian troops and more than 100 battlewagons -- machinegun-mounted pickup trucks -- have rolled across the border in the past few days into the Somali towns of Bulo Hawo, Dolow and Luq in the Gedo region, the witnesses said.

The manoeuvre appears to be an attempt to secure the border from attacks from rebel groups based in Somalia.

Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of backing the rebels as part of its 15-month-old war with Ethiopia, a charge Eritrea denies.

Witnesses who managed to leave the area on foot said the troops had blocked roads and confiscated weapons, ammunition and high-frequency radios -- a crucial means of communication in Somalia -- in a series of house-to-house searches.

Clan elders who left the region on foot and were contacted by radio said the Ethiopian troops had made several arrests and tortured some local residents.

There was no immediate comment from the Ethiopian government, which earlier this week denied any military involvement in Somalia.

Eritrea rejected an Ethiopian allegation that it was supporting the Oromo Liberation Front rebels opposed to the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Ethiopia said on Tuesday that Eritrea supplied arms and ammunition to the OLF and that as a result, it doubted Eritrea's stated commitment to an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) peace deal to end the war.

``We don't have any involvement (with the OLF),'' Eritrean ambassador to Nairobi Ghirmai Ghebremariam told Reuters. ``This (accusation) is a total fabrication and it is an Ethiopian ploy to not implement the peace process.''

An OAU delegation led by Algerian envoy Ahmed Ouyahia left Addis Ababa late on Tuesday after responding to Ethiopia's request for clarification on some points of the technical arrangements of the OAU agreement. The delegation headed for the Eritrean capital Asmara.

The letters were written by President Omar Al-Beshir of Sudan and his foreign minister, Mustapha Osman Ismael and were addressed to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin, the diplomat told AFP.

The neighbours could boost their respective diplomatic missions and economic cooperation, the diplomat added.

Senior officials in the Ethiopian ministry of mines and energy are shortly due to meet in Sudan to meet their counterparts there, he said.

Bilateral relations deteriorated after the attempted assassination in Addis Ababa in June 1995 of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Ethiopia has regularly called for the extradition of the culprits, claiming they are within Sudanese territory.

Khartoum, for its part, accuses Addis Ababa of supporting Sudanese opposition groups fighting in the east of the country.

Signs of rapprochement have emerged since 1998.