NAIROBI (AFP) -- Former Ethiopian rebel chief Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah, among the founders of the Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels, died on Sunday in Abu Dhabi at the age of 67, the group said.

In a brief statement, the ONLF did not give the cause of death of its ex-commander.
Founded in 1984, the ONLF is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region, whom they say have been marginalized by Addis Ababa.
""Ibrahim Abdalla strongly believed in the right to self-determination and freedom of the Somali people under Ethiopian rule. Ibrahim's spirit will always be beside the Somali Fighters in the Ogaden,"" the statement said.
Abdalla retired from armed struggle and politics in 1998 but retained his ONLF central committee post. He relocated to the United Arab Emirates where he continued to write books and newspaper articles, the ONLF said.
Abdalla was born in the barren Ogaden region that has long been extremely poor. The discovery of gas and oil there brought new hopes and fueled the conflict.
He had a basic education in the Ogaden before migrating to Saudi Arabia in 1958 and graduating from the Imam Mohamed Bin-Saud University in Mecca in 1970.
He moved to Somalia as a teacher in 1973, but three years later ventured into Somali nationalist politics and joined the Western Somalia Liberation Front (WSLF), a rebel gang fighting for the return of the Ogaden region from Ethiopia to Somalia.
The WSLF was vanquished in the Somalia-Ethiopia 1977-78 war.
Six years later, Abdalla and five others founded the ONLF to continue the struggle for the Ogaden, seeking independence for majority Somalis -- called Ogadens -- living in the region.
In 1991, he was elected ONLF chairman. In the same year, his movement joined Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) and other groups in a war that ousted Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.
In 1995, he pulled out of the Meles coalition government after surviving a failed assassination attempt.
He is survived by four sons and three daughters with a number of grandchildren.
Under the current leadership of Mohamed Osman, the ONLF has intensified its offensive against the Addis Ababa regime, with both sides claiming significant battlefield victories.
The latest phase of the war started in April 1997 when the military responded to an ONLF rebel attack on a Chinese oil venture that killed at least 74 people.
Rights and aid groups accuse both sides in the conflict of atrocities against civilians.