Demobilization

For the final time this year, Israeli troops hauled down their flag and pulled out of a West Bank city Wednesday, ducking a hail of stones as their jeeps speeded out of the town expected to become Yasser Arafat's West Bank base. The pullout from Ramallah leaves Arafat's forces in control of seven of the West Bank's eight Palestinian cities and about 400 villages.

Bosnia's enemy armies withdrew from selected front-line positions around this capital Wednesday in the first concrete test of a U.S.-brokered peace accord that formally ended 3 1/2 years of war. As a midnight deadline established in the peace treaty approached and passed, NATO officials said Bosnian government and Bosnian Serb troops had apparently complied by evacuating trenches, bunkers and military emplacements in and near Sarajevo.

Marines began returning Tuesday to Camp Pendleton from Somalia, saying they were proud they were able to safely evacuate the United Nations force from that war-torn country but disappointed to leave behind a nation perilously close to anarchy. "We did what we had to do, but it's a little rough to leave when so much needs doing," said Staff Sgt. Stephen Gallegos as he embraced his wife, Phyllis. "It's real sad over there."

Crusted with garbage, festooned with litter, knee-deep in rusting junk, scavenged by packs of wild dogs, blown by dirty sand and scorched by unforgiving sun, a small part of this nation was given back to Somalis on Wednesday. And they were happy to have it. Some slipped in early and hid overnight in abandoned boxes. Hundreds more assembled outside the fence. Then, at dawn, as U.N. tanks retreated from the Mogadishu airport, Somalis swarmed in for a frenzy of looting and gunfighting.

Perhaps because they arrived so tightly wound and trod so warily, U.S. Marines accomplished the evacuation of U.N. forces from this land without loss of American life. But their nervous caution took its toll on Somalis. In the final stages of the troops' retreat, every bullet fired against them was answered, it seemed, by 100. And after killing five Somalis, some for shooting in the direction of Americans and others for just appearing to be threatening, the U.S.

Americans dug into the sand along a razor-wire perimeter of Mogadishu's beachfront Tuesday. On the other side of the wire coils, an eerie quiet settled over a violent landscape. "It would make anyone wonder if this is the calm before the storm," said Army Special Forces Maj. Bryan Whitman. Under a relentless tropical sun, about 1,800 U.S. Marines and 350 of their Italian counterparts consolidated their hold on the sand of Mogadishu, providing protection for the retreat of U.N.

The Haitian military, the most powerful symbol and agent of the brutality and corruption that marked life here for half a century, is no more. The army is an object of public ridicule and the victim of a man it thought it had destroyed. In what many Haitian political analysts see as the most revolutionary change in Haitian life since the end of a U.S. military occupation more than 60 years ago, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has erased the army as an institution and a factor in Haitian life.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday that no decision had been made to stop the withdrawal of troops in Iraq this summer, a subtle rebuke of the top U.S. commander there, who suggested that reductions would pause after the current round of cuts was completed in July. The comments underscore the divergent views among top Defense Department officials over the long-term troop commitment to Iraq.

In a pageant filled with poetry, song, political speeches and a display of the Iraqi security forces' increased firepower, the U.S. Marines on Thursday turned over major responsibility for protecting this Euphrates River valley town to the Iraqi army and police. It was the second such turnover in recent weeks in the western province of Anbar, once a major battleground with Sunni Arab insurgents, with more expected, Marine officials said.

The Bush administration believes a halt in troop reductions in Iraq after July is needed in part to ensure a large enough force is present to provide security for local elections, a senior administration official said Friday. By tying troop levels to Iraq's provincial elections, officials in effect established a new milestone to guide U.S. policy during President Bush's last months in office.