United Nations Somalia

Unidentified gunmen broke into a World Food Program compound in the southern city of Baidoa, killing one Somali and wounding another, U.N. officials said Sunday. A senior U.N. military official said it was premature to blame the Saturday night attack on Muslim extremists, but that U.N. analysts suspect the shootings may be part of a larger campaign against non-Muslim aid agencies.

Somalia peace talks collapsed Sunday, and faction leaders went home, raising the risk of the country's abandonment by world donors who have warned that continued fighting could lead to an aid cutoff. Meanwhile, in Washington, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin said Sunday that the United States will withdraw about 2,500 of its 8,200 troops in Somalia by Christmas. "Between a quarter and a third of them will be out of the country" by Dec. 25, Aspin said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Hey you! Lie down! Lie down!" the young Marine shouted, pointing an assault rifle at Ahmed Hussein Fidow's head when it popped up, ever so briefly, to welcome U.S. Marines ashore here. It was Dec. 9, 1992, which seems a lifetime ago--the opening night of a year that went so wrong. But in a little-known scene that was to foreshadow so much, the Marine's warning wasn't enough. "Welcome Marines! Welcome in Mogadishu!" Fidow persisted from his prone position.

With few governments rushing in where Americans now fear to tread, the United Nations may have to transform its Somalia peacekeeping mission into a minuscule, almost token operation after the United States withdraws by March 31. According to U.N. sources, both Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and President Clinton have been largely rebuffed in their attempts to assemble a credible logistics and fighting force to replace the American troops after the withdrawal.

The American military, which lost 18 troops trying to capture Mohammed Farah Aidid in early October, provided the Somali clan leader with an airplane and an escort Thursday to get him to peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, leaving Administration officials scrambling to explain the latest twist in America's tangled adventure in Somalia. Having failed to put Somalia back together by force, the Administration switched in October to conciliation.

The United Nations' mission to feed and rebuild this war-ruined nation has spent more than $300 million in the last six months on its own forces and profit-seeking foreign contractors, according to documents and extensive interviews. But the armies have failed to restore peace, and the contractors have done little to reconstruct Somalia.

The United Nations released nine Somali detainees in Mogadishu, the first freed since a Security Council resolution suggested that all the detainees would be freed. The nine were "low-level" members of Somali strongman Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid's Somali National Alliance faction, and were released for lack of evidence, said Dave Stockwell, the U.N. military spokesman.

Taking on the Clinton Administration once again, Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali addressed the West Point cadets Thursday night and insisted that the United Nations must use military power to deal with crises such as Somalia or face "the spread of anarchy." The secretary general, who vehemently opposes President Clinton's decision to withdraw American troops from the Somali mission by March 31, told the future U.S.

An American civilian who worked for the United Nations was killed and two other foreigners were wounded Saturday in a carjacking. In a separate development, U.N. officials issued a warning of possible terrorist attacks by the Muslim fundamentalist group Hezbollah. U.N. military spokesman Maj. David Stockwell said that Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, the militia leader who controls south Mogadishu, "will be held responsible if such attacks occur."

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali clashed sharply over Somalia policy, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday, with the U.N. chief criticizing the United States for planning to bring home its troops too soon and Christopher complaining that the United Nations is getting in the way of a political settlement. "They got in each other's face," the official said, describing the Monday afternoon meeting in Christopher's office.