From: RCIRIT%DENVER@VAXF.Colorado.EDU (REMZI CIRIT)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Somalia News-1
Date: 30 Dec 1992 00:57:45 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

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                                              Fwd by Remzi Cirit 
 
In this issue:
SOMALI WARLORDS MOVING GUNWAGONS FROM MOGADISHU
FRENCH TROOPS WOUND THREE SOMALIS NEAR BAIDOA
SOMALI MUSLIMS SEEK FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC STATE
SOMALIA-SHAMBLES
GUNMEN LOOT FOOD AS TROOPS LEAVE
SOMALIA-NEXT FAMINE

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               S O M A L I A  N E W S  U P D A T E


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No 44                December 27, 1992.               ISSN 1103-1999

____________________________________________________________________
Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail and
fax. Questions can be directed to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax
number +46-18-151160. All material is free to quote as long as the
source is stated.
____________________________________________________________________


SOMALI WARLORDS MOVING GUNWAGONS FROM MOGADISHU

By Alistair Lyon

     MOGADISHU, Dec 21, Reuter - Two Somali warlords started to haul
their "technical" battlewagons out of Mogadishu on Monday under a
U.S.-brokered peace deal, a U.S. officer said.  A French military
spokesman announced plans for 350 French legionnaires and 150 U.S.
Marines to move into the famished inland town of Hoddur on Friday,
Christmas Day. U.S. military spokesman Colonel Fred Peck said
hundreds of Marines would leave Mogadishu at dawn on Tuesday for
Baidoa, Somalia's famine capital and the launchpad for planned task
force deployments to other hungry towns.
     "It's a big convoy packed to the gills with all the equipment
they need to go north," Peck said.
     Relief agencies have been pressing the multinational force to
act swiftly to curb lawlessness and gun rule, particularly in north
Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia where clan gangs have looted
food aid meant for the starving.  A U.S. officer said militia leader
Mohamed Farah Aideed had moved 30 to 40 technicals out of south
Mogadishu on Monday and his chief rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, would
move a similar number from the north on Tuesday.  "This is a Somali
agreement and it's being coordinated by the Somalis," said Marine
Colonel Michael Hagee. "That in itself is a large step forward."
Freelance bandits and factions not aligned with Aideed or Ali Mahdi
would be told by radio and newspaper announcements to get their
technicals out of town fast.
     "What we are trying to do is to get the factions to bring their
arms under control so we do not have a confrontation between the
combined task force and the Somalis," Hagee said.
     Ali Mahdi and Aideed agreed on December 11 to move "all forces
and their technicals" outside Mogadishu as part of a seven-point
peace plan reached two days after the multinational force reached
Somalia to secure relief routes for the starving.
     U.S. officials said any technical sighted after the accord had
taken effect would "automatically be considered a threat." American
and French troops have in the past opened fire when they have
perceived a direct threat from technicals. In the latest such clash,
French troops shot and wounded three Somalis after a battlewagon
fired on their observation post four km (two miles) northwest of
Baidoa on Sunday night. "A French sniper stopped the vehicle dead and
there was an exchange of fire," Colonel Jean-Paul Perruche told
reporters. He said a French platoon sent to reinforce the post traded
fire with gunmen one km (600 yards) south of the position.
     More French troops went in with two U.S. helicopters in support
and found three wounded Somalis armed with AK-47 assault rifles.
Seven other gunmen in the pickup had fled. There were no French
casualties. One Somali had serious stomach wounds. Perruche called
the attack deliberate but said he did not believe it was aimed
specifically at French troops. "It seems to me that some people of
the region of Baidoa are not very happy at the presence of U.S. and
French forces in this country. Before they had all the power to
terrorise and rob the people. Now they cannot act like that," he
said. U.S. and French troops took the famine-hit town of Baidoa,
dubbed the "City of Death," last Wednesday. Perruche said a joint
U.S.-French force, under French command, would push on to Hoddur, 150
km (90 miles) north of Baidoa, on Thursday and enter the town on
Christmas morning.


FRENCH TROOPS WOUND THREE SOMALIS NEAR BAIDOA

By Paul Holmes

     MOGADISHU, Dec 21, Reuter - French troops wounded at least three
gunmen when they came under attack in southern Somalia, a French
military spokesman said on Monday. Relief agencies urged U.S.-led
forces to push into lawless north Mogadishu and force weapons off the
streets. A French military spokesman said troops opened fire when 10
gunmen in a "technical" battlewagon charged towards their observation
post near the inland famine town of Baidoa under cover of darkness on
Sunday. "It was a concerted attack," said Colonel Jean-Paul Perruche.
He said a French sniper stopped the vehicle in its tracks. The three
Somalis, found with Kalashnikovs by French paratroops, were taken to
hospital, one with severe stomach wounds. No French soldiers were
hurt and the other gunmen fled.
     The clash highlighted continued insecurity in Somalia, where
U.S.-led forces have intervened to keep pillaging gunmen and feuding
clan militias away from food for victims of Africa's worst famine
this century. Relief agencies on Monday piled pressure on the U.S.
military to extend their security umbrella to north Mogadishu,
nominally controlled by warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed. "It's literally
teeming with AK-47s and teeming with technicals," said Mark Thomas,
spokesman for the U.N. Children.s Fund (UNICEF). "Any military
presence at all would help as long as it is a show of force. They
said it would happen soon but would give us no definite date," Thomas
said.
     U.S. troops who secured Mogadishu port and airport at the start
of Operation Restore Hope on December 9 have escorted food convoys
across the bombed out Green Line that divides the capital but do not
operate patrols in the north. Relief agencies have withdrawn
virtually all their foreign staff from the enclave because of the
insecurity. Thomas said the Irish aid agency Goal told a U.S.
military liaison officer at a daily meeting on Monday that it was
considering suspending operations in the north. "UNICEF supports what
Goal said about insecurity. We cannot send more supervisory staff in
until the situation improves," Thomas told reporters.
     U.S. Marines and their coalition allies have established
security bridgeheads for the relief operation in Baidoa and at a
military airfield in Bali Dogle and on Sunday swept ashore to do the
same in the southern port of Kismayu. But U.S. commanders say their
mission is not to disarm a country awash with weapons after two years
of clan killing and gun rule. Overall commander General Joseph Hoar
said last week that security would improve as more troops arrived.
     Sunday's attack on the French observation post, northwest of
Baidoa airfield, occurred a day after U.S. and French troops seized
six battlewagons and disarmed 45 heavily-armed gunmen who had massed
at a compound just outside Baidwa, 250 km (150 miles) west of
Mogadishu. A Marine patrol in Mogadishu also shot and hit a gunman in
a technical who trained a machinegun on them near the Green Line on
Sunday. It was not clear if the man was killed. "We're not in the
investigation business," said Navy Commander Jim Kudla, a U.S.
military spokesman. "The squad perceived a direct threat to them,
they fired and that's it."