Sunday and Monday saw heavy artillery duels in the area, where fighting has persisted since Friday, according to an Ethiopian officer.

Foreign observers said both sides were trying to secure a strategic advantage before the rainy season sets in completely. It is due to last until mid-September.

"The enemy has tried several times to penetrate and control this area," Major Tilahun Berhe told AFP.

He said Ethiopian soldiers had killed around 150 enemy troops in recent fighting in the area, taking 12 prisoners and seizing about a dozen rocket-propelled grenades.

On the road to Maye Dogale, journalists saw the decomposing bodies of Eritrean soldiers.

Villagers told AFP that some bodies had been devoured by hyenas or buried by peasants.

Maye Dogale controls access to northern Ethiopia's Tigray region.

About 100 armed militiamen are patrolling the area to "prevent any Eritrean penetration," a militiaman said.

Lieutenant Negash Teame, for his part, said the Ethiopian army conducted regular patrols as well.

The heavy rains have turned the battlefields into mud, which has stopped many vehicles in their tracks.

"The worst is to be stuck in a vehicle in the rain without knowing if it will stop in time for us to get away. But we know it's even harder for the Eritreans, who are obliged to attack us," one soldier said.

Addis Ababa and Asmara blame each other for new fighting that broke out on June 24.

Last week the UN Security Council called for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire to bring an end to the 14-month-old war over the two former allies' common border.

The two sides have agreed in principle to a peace plan proposed by the Organization of African Unity, but disagree over its interpretation.

Ethiopia is insisting that Eritrea withdraw from all other disputed territory along the border, some 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) long, before a ceasefire goes into effect, but Eritrea is rejecting the demand.

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Eritreans attacked Thursday and that fighting was continuing.

Reporters were allowed to visit the Ethiopian side of the Badme-Mereb River front Sunday for the first time since war broke out in May 1998 between the neighboring nations.

Officials showed the reporters the 60 miles of trenches and fortifications built by the Eritreans. "(Eritrean) President Isaias Afwerki had described the trenches as impregnable," said Lt. Negash Te'ame. "But we destroyed them in four days with unbelievably low casualties."

Eritrea claims Ethiopia launched the attack in the region 375 miles north of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Eritrea also claims Ethiopia suffered heavy losses but would not give specific numbers nor acknowledge its own losses.

Artillery exchanges echoed in the remote northern expanse of high, dry land a short distance from the river that had traditionally marked the boundary between the two Horn of Africa neighbors.

The officer who declined to be identified said 2,000 Eritrean troops had been killed in the four days of fighting, 3,540 wounded and 12 captured - including two young women.

He would not give figures for Ethiopian troop strength or losses.

He said the Ethiopians had captured 29 mortars, five field radios, two trucks loaded with ammunition and thousands of light arms as the Eritreans attempted to retake Badme.

Ethiopia pushed Eritrea out of the Badme area in February after what both sides acknowledged was heavy fighting with high casualties.

Analysts say the numbers of dead and wounded both sides claim to have inflicted on the other are greatly exaggerated, but they do agree that each side has lost thousands.

Ethiopia claims it was Eritrea's initial seizure of the Badme border post in early May 1998 that set off the war.

Today, Badme is a battered ghost town. Most of its 2,000 inhabitants have fled, swelling the ranks of the displaced that are said to number in the hundreds of thousands along the border in both countries.

One of the few to return is Mamuge Legesse, who came back with his wife and four children. The 49-year-old farmer has patched up his house and tethered his camel in the backyard.

The Ethiopian side claimed that Eritrea started the attack near the Mereb River and that "the Ethiopian defense forces successfully repelled the offensives" launched from Sunday to Tuesday. The fighting continued Tuesday with low intensity, said the release.

However, there is no response from the Eritrean side available here.

On Saturday, the Ethiopian airforce bombed Eritrea's Assab airport, a strategic military target, severely damaging the airport runway.

Ethiopia and Eritrea had blamed each other for initiating more fighting in the wake of renewed calls from the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) and the U.N. Security Council for immediate and unconditional cease-fire between the two Horn of Africa countries.

The war between the two Horn of Africa neighbors broke out in early May of 1998 over a disputed stretch of border.

The move is another sign that Ethiopia and Eritrea have effectively opened up a new front within Somalia in their year-long border war.

Analysts say Ethiopia is attempting to clear the border area of Ethiopian rebels and Somali factions, which have been supplied with arms by Eritrea.

An Ethiopian army column with 100 armoured vehicles captured the Garbaharey and Burdobo districts of Gedo region on Monday, said the Somali National Front (SNF), a local faction which considers the area as among its strongholds.

It also accused the Ethiopians of human rights atrocities. ``The invading Ethiopian troops killed civilians, raped women, looted food and other valuables,'' SNF chairman General Omer Haji Mohamed said in a statement.

SNF spokesman Ibrahim Jama Howle told a news conference in the Somali capital Mogadishu that two Ethiopian soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded while one SNF fighter was killed and five others were wounded in a battle,

Independent business sources contacted by radio in a neighbouring district confirmed the occupation and said Ethiopia had apparently cut all radio links with the region.

``Ethiopia is ... extending its border security and its influence on border factions,'' said a Nairobi-based analyst, who declined to be named. ``It is an extension of the Badme front (on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border) into Somalia.''

Somalia has been without central government since 1991, when rival clans overthrew late dictator Siad Barre.

Despite strong evidence that Ethiopia and Eritrea are fighting a proxy war in Somalia, both sides deny they have an active military presence there.

Tens of thousands of troops are thought to have died in a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea that threatens to further destabilise the Horn of Africa, a region already familiar with conflict and famine.