Gunmen Seize Red Cross Office in Somalia; Rebels Press Drive

Gunmen captured the Red Cross office in Somalia’s capital Friday, apparently taking its staff hostage, and fighting intensified in the rebels’ bloody attempt to drive Somalia’s president from power.

Rebels claimed to have massed 10,000 reinforcements in the seaside capital of Mogadishu for a final offensive to end President Mohamed Siad Barre’s 21-year rule.

About 500 people have been killed in fighting this week, and foreigners and Somalis have been trying to flee the East African nation.

Some of those arriving in Rome have reported that the streets were “covered with bodies.”

The rebels said Friday that they would halt fighting temporarily to help an evacuation effort, but they demanded two days’ notice from relief groups.

Siad Barre, in a radio address, urged all opponents of the government to join in peace talks in Mogadishu and said he was ready to abide by the negotiations “whatever the outcome.”

The rebels accuse Siad Barre of human rights violations. Reports of such violations have prompted the United States to cut nearly all of its aid to Somalia.

The three major rebel groups have repeatedly refused negotiations, and spokesmen for the rebels and Italy, the former colonial power, said fighting was intensifying.

The rebel United Somali Congress has led the current offensive.

In Geneva, the International Committee for the Red Cross said it did not know who attacked its office--Somali government troops, rebels or renegade bandits.

A spokeswoman said a Somali operator working for the Red Cross in Mogadishu was talking to the humanitarian agency’s Geneva headquarters by radio phone when he was forced to break off the conversation.

He reported that “armed elements” had entered the building, the spokeswoman said. “I have a gun against my head so I can’t talk any more,” she quoted him as saying.

The spokeswoman said there had been no further contact with the six-member Red Cross delegation in Mogadishu.

The United Somali Congress has demanded that the Red Cross oversee any evacuation of foreigners from the capital, saying the use of military planes or ships by Italy, the United States or other Western nations would be taken as an unwarranted intervention.

On Friday, the rebels said they would accept a brief halt to the fighting to allow for evacuation.

However, Abdirahem Mohammed, a rebel spokesman in Rome, said the rebels would not negotiate with Siad Barre and were preparing an assault on his remaining strongholds.