Heavily armed Ethiopian troops have entered a district in south Somalia nearly a month after the troops left the war-torn country, witnesses said on Wednesday.
Villagers in the southern Bakool region say the troops have crossed the border and set up bases in the village of Yeet, in Rabdhure district, 28 km south of the regional capital of Hudur.
Ethiopia withdrew its forces from Somalia after two years of presence in the country following the defeat of the Islamists that run much of southern and central Somalia in the later half of 2006.
It is not clear why the Ethiopian troops entered the region but there have lately been reports of troop movement by Somali government forces in Hudur in the Bakool regional backing officials who fled the southern town of Baidoa when it fell into the hands of the Al-Shabaab insurgent fighters last month.
Baidoa has been the seat of Somali parliament before its capture by the hardline Islamist group of Al-Shabaab which opposes the new Somali government leadership.
Residents in the villages around the border district of Rabdhuure say that the troops arrested a number of locals soon after entering the area.
In January, local officials charged that Ethiopian troops crossed over into the other Somali border region of Hiran in central Somalia, two weeks after their withdrawal from the country but the Ethiopian government denied the allegations.