Somali Rivals Agree to Unify Divided Capital

The two major rival clan leaders in Somalia have agreed to abolish the so-called Green Line dividing their forces in this capital and to allow U.S. troops to occupy the entire city, it was announced Sunday.

Until now, U.S. troops and other foreign forces here have been confined to the southern area of Mogadishu, with the northern section the objective of only sporadic patrols. As a result, northern Mogadishu became a zone of chaos with constant violence and general lawlessness.

But in a five-hour meeting at the makeshift U.S. Embassy that began Saturday and lasted into the night, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid and his chief clan rival, self-proclaimed acting President Ali Mahdi Mohamed, agreed to unify the city.

Aidid controls the southern section, while Mahdi’s forces are dominant in the 20% of the capital north of the Green Line. The city was divided during two years of civil war as Aidid and Mahdi violently vied for power after having together toppled President Mohamed Siad Barre in January, 1991.

The Green Line--now a no-man’s-land of burned-out rubble and collapsed buildings--is scheduled to be the site of a joint demonstration by Aidid and Mahdi today to celebrate their agreement.

Some Somalis liken the event to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. “We’re going to tear down the Green Line; we’re going to free the city,” said Mohamed Hassan Siad, a follower of Aidid.

The pact presages an increase in the presence of U.S. forces in northern Mogadishu and a more aggressive attitude by the U.S.-led, U.N.-sponsored force here toward confiscating heavy weapons.

“I think you will see in the next several days the removal of all heavy weapons from north Mogadishu and the removal of all vestiges of the Green Line,” said a senior U.S. official who had a hand in setting up the Aidid-Mahdi talks.

He based his statement on a part of the accord that re-emphasizes an earlier agreement by both sides to move all of their heavy weapons, including gun-mounted pickup trucks, into compounds outside the city.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Ritter said Sunday that “we are beginning day and night patrols into the area very soon.” And U.N. spokesman Farouk Mawlawi said he was told that the U.S. Marines will establish two permanent posts in the north.

Sunday’s agreement was the third pact aimed at reducing violence that the rival warlords have lent their names to since the Marines landed here Dec. 9. The previous two met with only partial success. The senior U.S. official said, “I’m not so sure this will work (any better than before), but I hope for the best.”

The official said that the reason for past breakdowns, as well as the delay in removing the Green Line, was the inability of the two leaders to put aside clan disputes in favor of pragmatic political needs.

The feeling now seems to be, the U.S. official said, that “three weeks of our presence has given them an opportunity to break out of the mold (of their old feuds). This shows a greater willingness to settle their problems.”

He said the meeting and the plan for today’s demonstration were worked out between the two leaders without U.S. interference. “They met for five hours without our being around,” the official said. “We just provided a neutral meeting ground.”

But even though the United States prefers to claim that it is not a mediator in the Aidid-Mahdi talks, the fact is that special U.S. envoy Robert B. Oakley addressed the meeting Saturday and urged the two warlords to cooperate.

He also told them that U.S. forces are going to expand their operations against Somali heavy weapons, including any belonging to the warlords.

If the agreement holds, it comes not a moment too soon: The security situation here continues to deteriorate.

In one of the more serious incidents since the arrival of the U.S. forces, a large band of Somalis attacked a U.N. military observer post in north Mogadishu.

According to U.N. spokesman Mawlawi, the post was a target for nearly two hours of fire from rifles, machine guns and rockets. It took a company of Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers and a flyover by U.S. F-18 fighter jets and a helicopter gunship to drive off the attackers.

Mawlawi said that at least two Somalis were killed and several were wounded during the clash. No U.N. personnel were hurt.

“Yes, I would say the situation in north Mogadishu is deteriorating,” Mawlawi said, adding that the United Nations has evacuated the observation compound.

The senior U.S. official took exception to that assessment, saying: “I dispute those who say things are worse. Before you had people killing themselves.”

And they may still intend to, judging from the number of weapons still around. On Sunday, U.S. Marines found a large cache of guns hidden in southern Mogadishu near the radio station. They confiscated a large artillery piece, heavy machine guns, uncounted rounds of rocket grenades and a large amount of ammunition.

And despite the Marines, relief agencies continued to suffer from looters and gunmen. One U.N. truck was robbed Sunday in Mogadishu and its driver beaten, Mawlawi said.

He also complained that food is piling up at the port of Marka just south of the capital because gunmen refuse to allow trucks to leave.

U.S. officials say they know nothing of the problem and argue that, in any case, they don’t have the troops to be everywhere. As of Sunday, the total number of foreign forces in the country, including nearly 22,000 Americans, is just under 27,000, according to military sources.

Some of those troops occupied the interior town of Gailalassi on Sunday night to provide security for a famine-relief distribution system. That operation will be followed today by a helicopter landing of U.S. Marines and Canadian airborne troops in Belet Huen, also in the interior of the country.