NAIROBI, Kenya -- Rebels of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front were encircling the captal of Addis Ababa on Friday as government troops fell back but a spokesman an assault on the city was not imminent.
'We are not in a hurry to enter the city,' spokesman Assefa Mamo told United Press International by telephone from London. 'The government is trying to make the city the final fighting garrison. This is an irresponsible act.'
He said further moves by EPRDF troops, who advanced to within 20 miles of the capital Thursday, would be determined by the government's actions.
'The fighting on the ground has its own dynamism,' Assefa said.
Government troops are reported withdrawing to camps on the outskirts of the capital and British and Canadian nationals were advised to leave Ethiopia. But the British Foreign Office in London said it had no plans to close its embassy in Addis Ababa.
Tanks were deployed around the presidential palace where President Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan has been in residence since being named to succeed President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who fled Tuesday and sought political asylum in the southern African country of Zimbabwe after 14 years of one-man rule.
Israel, meanwhile, sent two giant Hercules C-130 transport planes and two Boeing 707 jetliners to Ethiopia Friday to rescue hundreds of Ethiopian Jews, known as Falashas, according to reports reaching the State Department.
About 18,000 Ethiopian Jews are still believed tobe in the civil war-torn country. They are expected to join more than 20,000 Falashas flown to Israel during a previous rescue mission.
The reports said several hundred Ethiopian Jews were expected to be flown to Israel during the first phase of the latest freedom flight.
The official Ethiopian News Agency Friday broadcast a statement by the government's war council, the National Campaign Center Supreme Command, saying that heavy fighting was continuing.
It called on all Ethiopians to continue working, saying that absenteeism at this time was 'most inappropriate.'
The government Thursday released 196 political prisoners, including members of the armed forces involved in an unsuccessful coup in May 1989. Some of the prisoners had been incarcerated for 13 years.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Tefera Wonde, who was imprisoned after he was implicated in the May 1989 coup, said in a statement broadcast by ENA he never knew why he was thrown in prison and was never charged.
Others released include former Ambassador to South Yemen Gesesse Wolde-Kidan, Rear Adm. Tesfaye Berhanu and Maj. Gen. Mulatu Negash. All three were imprisoned after the 1989 coup.
Mulatu was commander of the army in northern Tigray province when rebels drove government forces out of the province three years ago.
Assefa, speaking for the EPRDF, welcomed the releases.
'It is only due to the pressure we are exerting that these prisoners have been released. We do not know how many are still incarcerated,' he said.
An Ethiopian army pilot has defected to Sudan with his military plane, state-run Sudan News Agency said Friday.
The pilot, Capt. Fantana Gallo, landed at Khartoum airport with his Mig-23 Wednesday and was granted political asylum.
Sudanese Maj. Gen. Mohamed Abdalla Awaida said the pilot was given a 'brotherly and good' reception and that the request for asylum was accepted in the framework of 'good and eternal relations between Sudan and its Ethiopian neighbors.'
U.S.-mediated peace talks scheduled for May 27 in London still seem likely to continue. The government, the EPRDF, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front have all agreed to attend.