Somali insurgents battling for control of eastern Ethiopia's Ogaden Desert confirmed reports of heavy fighting near two
strategic cities Wednesday but denied they have suffered critical defeats or were being "routed in all directions."

The Western Somali Liberation Front claimed in a statement here that Russian and Cuban forces fighting for Ethiopia's Marxist
regime made a two-pronged attack Sunday and Monday, hammering at rebelheld position with aerial and artillery
bombardments and ground tank thrusts.

The sharpes battles, the statement said, were fought in the towns of Harawa and Kadar Aday less than 25 miles from
Diredawa, Ethiopia's third largest city and one of its last remaining strongholds in the Ogaden along with the ancident walled
citadel of Hara.

The Liberation Front, comprised of ethnic Somali tribesmen fighting to secede the Ogaden erritory from Ethiopia and join it to
neighbouring Somalia, said the Ethiopian claims of major victories were "baseless."

The rebels, who are said to control 97 percent of the Ogaden near the Somali border, alleged that its forces destroyed 43
Ethiopian tanks and shot down two planes during the fighting Sunday and Monday.

Western correspondents were unable independently to confirm either country's claims because they are not allowed in the batle
area.

A mediator from the Organization of African Unity, which is trying to settle the Somali-Ethiopian dispute, arrived in Mogadishu
on Wednesday after a round of talks with Ethiopian military leaders in Addis Ababa.

The envoy, Nigerian Foreign Minister Joseph Garb, said the Ethiopians had put some "very though proposals" on the table and
implied that one of them was a complete Somali troop withdrawal from eastern Ethiopia.

The Somali government has denied that it has any troops fighting it the Ogaden. Mogadishu officials have charged that Ethiopia,
on the other hand, has enlisted Cuban troop and Soviet advisory help in their struggle against Somali rebels and Eritrean
secessionists in the north.

Kuwait called Wednesday for collective Arab action to defend Somalia - a member of the Arab League - against a purported
Ethiopian invasion. But the Kuwaiti government spokesman urged the Arab nations to suppport the OAU in its attempt to settle
the Ethiopian-Somali dispute.

In the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Tuesday, a member of the governing Military Provisional Council told foreign
correspondents that the Ethiopian counteroffensive to recapture the Ogaden had started and Somali rebels were being "route in
all directions."

Sub Lt. Tamarat Ferede claimed Ethiopian forces were advancing from Harar and Diredawa in an attempt to drive the rebels
out of the town of Jijiga, about 45 miles east of Harar west of the Somali border. But Tamarat denied the Somali government's
charge that Ethiopia plans to invade Somalia to re-establish the Soviet navy in the Gulf of Aden ports which provide access to
Western-Middle East oil supply routes.

Somalia, in a broadcast by the Sonna news agency, claimed Wednesday that six Russian-piloted warplanes of the Ethiopian air
force bombed the northern Somali cities of Berbera and Harigeisa.  Berbera was a major Russian naval base on the Gulf of
Aden until Somalia expelled Soviet advisers last November over their aid to Ethiopia.

In Moscow, the Soviet news agency Tass said Wednesday the Soviet Union seeks a peaceful settlement of the war in
Ethiopia's favor "through talks on the basis of mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and noninterference."

The Associated Press (AP)
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