Somali Hostility Aimed at U.S. Troops Random but Becoming Commonplace

The U.S. Marines sat alertly watching traffic pass their armed vehicle parked in the middle of the road in front of the hotel housing American reporters in Mogadishu when a pair of trucks pulled up Monday with Somalis carrying combat rifles.

The Americans trained their rifles and machine gun on the trucks; for five tense minutes they waited. The Somalis withdrew with smiles, driving off. No shooting, just a bewildering incident fraught with danger.

It is becoming commonplace in Somalia.

Despite efforts by Marine spokesmen to keep such occurrences out of the news, American troops in the field are reporting disturbing moments of hostility. They do not add up to a pattern; so widespread is the possession of guns in this country that it seems impossible to pinpoint who might be doing what and why.

In any case, American officials go out of their way to say they know nothing about shooting when it breaks out; they say they cannot locate the source of fire, even when an event as large as an artillery duel occurs, as it did last week in northeast Mogadishu.

One young Marine told of the ambush of a U.S. Marine-escorted food convoy to Baidoa last week. He said that two trucks circled the long convoy, shooting wildly. One bullet hit the motor of a Marine truck, disabling it.

Another Marine spoke of nighttime sniper fire on an American outpost at “Kilometer Four” circle; one Marine saw the burst of gunfire but did not return fire because the street, even at 2 a.m., was full of people.

No U.S. Marine has been killed or wounded, thus far, in encounters with Somalis. Officially, the U.S. troops’ presence here is defined as only peacekeeping, a mission to ensure deliveries of food to famine-stricken Somalia.

That mission seems largely successful, despite incidents of looting by marauders in the countryside who strike after the Marines have dropped off supplies; such untoward incidents are played down by spokesmen who brief reporters each afternoon.

Last Friday, a U.N. spokesman reported the accidental but fatal shooting of a Somali woman in Kismayu on Thursday, when a U.S. Marine’s rifle discharged when he leaped from a helicopter. Marine spokesman Col. Michael Hagee said Saturday that he knew nothing of the incident.

Hagee said last week that American forces, when they found the arms, would confiscate artillery used in a battle that broke out last week during President Bush’s visit; on Monday, he said the Marines could not locate the weapons.

Relief agency officials have been pressing for the military to confiscate heavy weapons as well as light arms. But the Americans insist that local militias can keep their mortars, artillery and even tanks--as long as they stay in designated compounds. The U.S. Marines have no plans to confiscate rifles and guns, considering that task especially dangerous since it would involve house-to-house searches.

Somalis are supposed to keep weapons out of sight when traveling the streets; Marines have seized brandished weapons. In some areas, Marines may fire on anyone who points a weapon at them; in other places, they cannot. It seems to depend on the local commander, although, officially, Somalis can be shot if they point a gun at a Marine.

The situation is reminiscent of 1983 Beirut, where American forces also ventured as “peacekeepers.” There were far fewer troops on hostile territory in Lebanon, compared with Somalia. In Lebanon, angry local factions asserted the Americans were partisan forces and shelled them; a Shiite Muslim drove an explosives-laden truck into a U.S. Marine compound, killing 241 American servicemen in October, 1983.

The danger level in Somalia seems lower: The Marines are not pinned down in one area, as they were at Beirut airport, where they were subject to shelling from nearby mountains; car bombs have not made their appearance in Somalia; the Americans have not yet been seen here as siding with one faction or another in Somalia’s civil war.

Yet the ambiguities remain: If the Marines must fire on Somalis, would the Americans become targets of vengeance? Would they become targets of locals after being accused of taking sides in the Somali conflict?

The uncertainties may, in part, explain the eagerness of the United States to begin turning over much of its humanitarian mission to U.N. forces at month’s end.

But Somalis--hoping the U.S. military will create enough stability so they can put their shattered country back together again--are pressing for a longer U.S. stay.