Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Four Somali women sat half-buried i a pile of American wheat in a seaside neighborhood, guarded by U.N. soldiers stationed on nearby rooftops. And, for the first time in two weeks, they resumed the job of giving food to the beleaguered citizenry."I was afraid to come today," admitted Kadijo Hassan Mohamud, a 25-year-old mother of four. "But for food, we must trust in God. And if someone kills us, then they kill us."The food relief program, halted in much of this capital after the June 5 massacre of 24 U.N. troops and subsequent U.N. clashes with warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, resumed this week.

WASHINGTON -- After the deaths of scores of servicemen and untold numbers of Somalis, and a cost of close to $3 billion, the world's largest experiment in nation building will soon come to a weary, ignominious end in the Horn of Africa.With 7,000 U.S. troops poised offshore to help, United Nations forces are racing to leave Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, in advance of a race by Somali looters for the equipment the United Nations is leaving behind and for control of the city's biggest prizes: the port and airport.

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- In a bold and risky rebuke to both the Clinton administration and Somalian warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali defied even his own staff's security warnings yesterday to visit the once-starving town of Baidoa and the Somalian capital, where angry demonstrators burned tires and waved cow skulls to protest the visit.But the secretary-general never saw the protests.In fact, Mr. Boutros-Ghali never left the heavily fortified Mogadishu airport during his secretive two-hour stop in the capital, where not even the news media knew of his presence until after he departed for Nairobi, Kenya.

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council authorized yesterday a regional force to protect Somalia's faltering interim government against Islamic militants, despite warnings that such intervention could spark a regional conflict. The measure, passed unanimously, lifts a 1992 weapons embargo to allow the African force to arm itself. It urges Islamic militants to join talks with the transitional government and threatens unspecified penalties against those blocking peace efforts or trying to overthrow the government.

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania -- Islamist forces in Somalia expanded their offensive yesterday, witnesses said, and began attacking the seat of the transitional government from a new direction. According to residents in the Bakal area north of Baidoa, the inland city where the transitional government is based, Islamist forces rushed in with several dozen pickup trucks bristling with heavy guns. Before this, their attacks had been limited to the south and the east of Baidoa, where they met stiff resistance and suffered many casualties.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon plans to ask Congress for $300 million to pay for the military operation in Somalia through March, when U.S. forces are to leave the African nation, according to a senior Defense Department official.The Pentagon official, who spoke to reporters Friday on the condition of anonymity, said the extra money was needed because the armed services are paying for the Somalia operation with money earmarked for other activities, such as routine training, in the 1994 fiscal year.

Escorted by numerous helicopters and armored vehicles, four trucks make the first food delivery, bringing 20 tons of goods across into northern Mogadishu.An U.S. helicopter gunship comes under attack and fires on three armed Somali vehicles, destroying them and causing casualties. No Americans are injured.U.N. Spokesman Ian MacLeod says about 50 people are dying each day of hunger and disease in Kismayu, more than 160 a day in Bardera to the west and 120 daily in Biadoa.Spokesman MacLeod says that task force commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Johnston, has promised to speed up movement of troops to other parts of the country as aid workers there cite growing threat from bandits.

WASHINGTON -- Signaling the start of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Somalia, Defense Secretary Les Aspin says 2,500 of the 8,200 American soldiers there will leave by Christmas.Pentagon officials said that about 1,000 soldiers are packing now and would fly home beginning later this week.The number and firepower of U.S. forces in Somalia were increased by President Clinton two months ago after a battle with a Somalian faction in which 18 American soldiers died and 75 were wounded. But Mr. Clinton also set March 31 as the deadline for pulling out all the American troops.

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- With U.S. Marines pouring out gunfire to safeguard a U.N. retreat, the world gave up on woebegone Somalia today.The goodbye was purely military: Seventy-three hours after landing, the last of the Marines, their machine gun barrels still hot, rumbled across the beach and splashed their amphibious assault vehicles into the Indian Ocean, bound for home or duty stations elsewhere.Fading into the distance was the sorrowful pop of Somali gunfire, the national anthem for this disintegrated nation.

When President Bush launched Operation Restore Hope to feed starving Somalis, I was one Somali-American who celebrated the generosity of my adopted country.And when President Clinton, after the successful accomplishment of the American mission to feed Somalis, turned the management of Somalia to the United Nations, I was full of hope that the rehabilitation and the reconstruction of Somalia would take place under American leadership.It is obvious, however, that Somalia isn't getting any closer to becoming a rehabilitated nation.