Somali guerrillas seeking to wrest control of the Ogaden region from Ethiopia are in firm control of this strategic town just
250 miles from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Insurgents of the Western Somali Liberation Front WSLF seized Jijiga on the northern fringe of the Ogaden Desert Aug. 27
after two weeks furious fighting. They claimed 12,000 Ethiopian soldiers were killed, captured or wounded in the fight for this
town that served as a tank base and radar center.

The rebels also reported their forces were only 23 miles from their next major target, the walled city of Harar.

WSLF leaders say they only have to capture Harar, Dire-dawa and Awash - all in the northern Ogaden - to complete their
conquest.

Ethiopia's left-wing military junta, reeling from battlefield losses, still claims to control Jijiga. But the WSLE invited Western
journalists to disprove this by visiting the town.

Six correspondents and two television crews were taken in four-wheel-drive vehicles from the Somali city of Hargeysa to Jijiga, where they spent 24 hours.

They saw destroyed Ethiopian army forts, millions of dollars worth of abandoned military equipment and the decomposing
bodies of nine Ethiopian soldiers.

At Redbedis, an Ethiopian installation on the outskirts of town, barracks were riddled with bullet holes, mortar shells littered the
ground and five American-made M41 tanks of the Ethiopian army stood where they had been abandoned.

Hillside ammunition dumps of the 3rd Ethiopian Tank Pattalion were stacked chest-high with useable ammunition.

"Because of the strategic importance of Jijiga this was one of the largest concentrations of Ethiopian power," said WSLE
commander Abdullahi Iabi.

"They didn't just want to stop us here, they wanted to crush us out."

Abdullahi, speaking through a Somali government interpreter, said about 30,000 Ethiopian soldiers and militiamen had
defended the town, which lies at the gateway to the Ethiopian central highlands.

He said the rebels and townspeople launched a final night assault Aug. 26 and by dawn the flag of the WSLE - flew over Jijiga.

"The Ethiopians had poor morale. When we concentrated our fire they panicked and began running away," Abdullahi said.

The Western reporters saw about 15 abandoned tanks, including two Soviet-made T34s.  The rebels said the Ethiopians lost a
total of 48 tanks.

When the reporters asked to see the graves of the slain defenders, abdullahi said the bodies had been burned to prevent
disease and the prisoners had been transferred to other camps.

He did not give any casualty figures for the insurments.

While the Ethiopian garrison building showed evidence of the assaults, the town was relatively unscathed.

Only about a half-dozen of the common one-story brick buildings were damaged, and many of Jijiga's 20,000 inhabitants have
returned to their homes.

Hussein Gere Liban, a village elder, asked the reporters, "How would you feel if your country was free today for the first time?
I'm so happy I only wish that many of our people who the Ethiopians killed were alive to see this."

The Ogaden region is populated by Etnhic Somalis. It was ceded to Ethiopia at the turn of the century when European colonial
powers carved up eastern Africa and set national boundaries.

The WSLE wants to annex the region to Somalia because of their shared ethnic, religious and historical ties.

Somalia has acknowledged providing aid to the rebels but has denied Ethiopian claims that it has sent military units into the
region.

The Associated Press (AP)

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