GALKAYO, Somalia May 3 (Garowe Online) - Authorities in Somalia's Puntland State regional administration have extradited an additional number of Somali civilians over to the government of Ethiopia, independent sources told Garowe Online.

At least 13 men with clan ties to Ethiopia's restive Ogaden region were rounded up in the Puntland city of Galkayo, 750km north of the national capital Mogadishu, the sources added.

After intense questioning, at least six members of the group were handed over to Ethiopian intelligence officers, who were cooperating with the Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS) during the operation.

Ethiopian army invaded southern Somalia in Dec. 2006

A relative of one of the detainees told the BBC Somali Service that PIS and Ethiopian intelligence officers transported several of the detainees to a secret location in Garowe, the capital of Puntland.

The anonymous relative indicated that some of the detained men were employed as day laborers, while others came to Puntland for medical reasons.

Traditional elders who contacted Radio Garowe said Galkayo city government officials distanced themselves from having anything to do with the arrests.

A Galkayo-based clan elder named Abdalla Jama Jibril told the BBC Somali Service that the men were arrested for "clan reasons," adding that all of them belong to the Somalis' Ogaden clan that dominates in eastern Ethiopia's Somali Regional State, which is popularly known as the Ogaden region.

"Before, we used to always hear people in Mogadishu say that Ethiopians have conquered us…today, we [in Galkayo] feel the same," the clan elder said during the Saturday interview.

Last month, PIS agents arrested two political officers that served in the central committee of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), an Ethiopian rebel group fighting for self-determination in the region of Ogaden.

It was the first time that ONLF political officers were arrested in Puntland, with later reports indicating that the officers were extradited to Ethiopia.

The arbitrary arrests come on the heel of Puntland President Adde Muse's trip to Ethiopia in April. Ethiopian government officials have often accused the Muse administration of allowing ONLF rebels to operate on Puntland territory.

Ethiopia's repressive regime has been widely condemned by international human rights organizations and aid agencies, especially with regard to the Ogaden region, which has suffered from a low-level ONLF insurgency since the 1990s.

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Source: Garowe Online