Somali-backed forces Monday claimed to have penetrated within 12 miles of the key Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa - one of
three they need to capture to gain firm control of Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region.

A war communique broadcast by official Somali radio said forces of the Western Somali Liberation Front clashed Sunday with
Ethiopian troops at a village 12 miles south-east of Dire Dawa, killing 66 and capturing 123.

The Front gave no casualty figures for its own side and independent confirmation is not available of fighting in the undeclared
border war between Somalia and Ethiopia.

The Front already claims to control 95 per cent of the Ogaden, including Jijiga - one of the three key towns. The Ethiopians say
fighting for control of Jijiga is still continuing.

Meanwhile, in response to emergency call-up measures announced by Ethiopia's Marxist military government over the
weekend, thousands of retired soldiers have reported for war service in the capital of Addis Ababa.

Western diplomatic sources in the Ethiopian capital say the veterans army is begin registered at the old airport in the city.
Covered truck convoys have also been spotted heading to the eastern warfront.

Thousands veterans reported battlehardened veterans reported for duty in seven other Ethiopian towns, the official radio
reported.

All able-bodied ethiopians have been urged to take up arms and move to the warfront by the government as part of a national
mobilization designed to prevent the insurgents taking the entire Ogaden which they want to annex to Somalia.

Despite the urgent tone of the mobilization decrees, diplomats report a complete lack of panic in the capital where day-to-day
life is outwardly continuing as normal.

Members of the ruling provisional military administrative council from four regions of the Ethiopian heartland still controlled by
the government have met in Addis Ababa to corrdinate the new call-up measure, the official radio said Monday.

It also reported six Somali soldiers killed in a clash with Ethiopian militia and regular forces in on partol in southern Sidamo
province which borders Kenya.

In Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, a Liberation Front official told western reporters an advance party of rebel forces is on
the outskirts of Harar, 50 miles from Jijiga. Harar and Dire Dawa are Ethiopia's last two strongholds in the Ogaden.

The official said the main rebel force is 17 miles behind the advance troops, cleaning out isolated pockets of resistance.

Diplomatic sources in Mogadishu said that Jijiga, an Ethiopian tank and radar base near the foot of the Marda Mountains, fell
last week after some of the fiercest fighting of the desert war.

The rebel spokesman said the battle for Jijiga lasted more than a week and 4,000 Ethiopian troops were killed. Diplomats,
however, believed the claim was exaggerated and that only 2,000-4,000 Ethiopian troops were stationed in the garrison.

Other Liberation Front sources said the tide of the battle for Jijiga turned when the Ethiopians made a tactical blunder. They
said Ethiopian troops guarding a mountain road from Jijiga to Harar abandoned their posts to join in a counterattack against
guerrillas on a plain outside the town.

This enabled another guerrilla force to seize the mountain positions and cut off supplies to the Jijiga defenders, the sources said.

The Associated Press (AP)