Marines Getting Tough in Somali Capital as Bush Visit Is Awaited

U.S. troops moved into Mogadishu’s lawless northern sector Tuesday and announced to rival clansmen and gunmen a crackdown on violence in advance of President Bush’s visit to the capital.

In the southern port of Kismayu, diplomats confirmed that a warlord had ordered door-to-door slayings of up to 200 rivals to consolidate his grip before the arrival of U.S. troops last week.

The Western diplomats said the slaughter was carried out by militiamen loyal to an ally of Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, whose opposition to the deployment of U.N. troops led to the foreign military intervention in Somalia.

Twenty-one days after hitting the beach at Mogadishu, U.S. Marines on Tuesday began to cross the so-called Green Line that divides the city, moving into the capital’s lawless northern sector.

Mogadishu’s two halves are the fiefdoms of rival warlords Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed, who controls the north. On Monday, they renewed a pledge to bury their differences and dismantle the line, but the line didn’t budge Tuesday.

Col. Fred Peck, a spokesman for the U.S. forces, said the Marines have begun mounting foot and armored vehicle patrols into northern Mogadishu and will gradually strengthen their presence.

Military planes dropped 100,000 leaflets that in the Somali language and pictures set forth the military task force’s “rules for Mogadishu.”

The rules: Machine guns, recoilless rifles, mortars, armored vehicles, infantry fighting machines or vehicles equipped with weapon mounts “will not be tolerated” and will be confiscated on sight.

Looting and killing will not be tolerated either, and “anyone aiming or pointing weapons directly at Combined Task Forces will be shot.”

Bush is scheduled to make a New Year’s Eve visit to the capital to meet with Marines and visit an International Red Cross hospital and feeding center.

The military command said he would spend New Year’s Day in Baidoa and Bela Dogle, two towns wrested from warlords who had looted donated food and medical supplies intended for starving villagers.

Despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops, there are daily reports of looting, threats against foreign aid workers and journalists and shootouts between rival clans in Mogadishu and other areas of the country.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Frank Strovas confirmed reports that a powerful warlord ordered the systematic killing of rival clansmen in the southern port of Kismayu over several days before U.S. and Belgian troops arrived Dec. 20.

Other Western diplomats and aid workers, some speaking on condition of anonymity, said that between 50 and 200 religious leaders, businessmen, doctors and other members of the Harti clan were slaughtered by militiamen loyal to Col. Omar Jess.

They said killings of the Hartis continued secretly after the Americans arrived.