Ethiopia denies "escalating" war by bombing Massawa

Ethiopia denied on Monday that its bombing of the Eritrean port of Massawa on Sunday morning represented an escalation of the war between the two countries, and insisted that it targeted only military facilities and not civilians as claimed by Asmara. A spokesman at the Ethiopian embassy in Nairobi told IRIN that the bombing of the Red Sea port "is not an escalation, it is a continuation" because, though not near the current war front, the objective was "not to affect economic activities but to target specific military targets - depots, the naval base and stores". "We want to incapacitate them so they will be increasingly weak at the front", he added. The dawn raid by MIG-23 fighter planes killed a civilian and wounded three other people, AFP reported on Monday. Bombs damaged three warehouses but three others fell into the Red Sea and three foreign vessels at the port escaped unscathed, according to media reports.