IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia — The rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders.

Often when they pass through a village, the entire village lines up, one sunken cheekbone to the next, to squint at them.

"May God bring you victory," one woman whispered.

This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa.

What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project.

Ethiopia's government has admitted that it detained 41 "terror suspects" who were captured in neighbouring Somalia.

The ministry of foreign affairs said the detainees were from 17 countries including America, Canada and Sweden.

It is the first time the government has admitted that it is holding the foreigners, defending the action as part of the "global war on terror".

Ethiopia denied the detainees had been held incommunicado. It says five have been released, with 24 more to follow.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Eight Ethiopians held hostage for 52 days after they were kidnapped along with five European tourists have been released unharmed, government officials said Sunday.

Thirteen Ethiopians were seized at gunpoint along with the five Europeans on March 1 while on a sightseeing tour in northeastern Ethiopia near the disputed border with Eritrea. Five of the Ethiopians were found within days of the kidnapping. The Europeans were released March 13.

It was not clear who had seized the group. But an adviser to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Bereket Simon, called it "a terrorist act that was taken by the Eritrean government and those sponsored by it."

Eritrea denied having anything to do with the kidnapping and blamed it on the Ethiopian rebel group Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front. ARDUF, established in the 1990s, aims to unite Afar tribal members in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea.

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"Shelef's mobile lab solves the problem by providing all necessary tools on the back of a truck or other towed vehicle that can be driven right onto the field. Performing soil and leaf analyses on site allows the farmer to determine the exact amount of fertilizer required for the crops. That prevents over-fertilization, which creates water pollution, and helps conserve water used for irrigation.