Somalis Near Accord on First Peace Steps

Warlords and other Somali political leaders neared agreement Thursday on the first tentative steps toward peace in Somalia and a national reconciliation conference, authoritative U.N. sources said.

The only holdout was Mohammed Farah Aidid, two of whose compounds and arsenals were blasted by U.S. forces in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, earlier in the day. But Aidid, rather than reject the agreement, asked for a day’s extension of the U.N.-sponsored talks in Addis Ababa.

The agreement, according to the U.N. sources, would:

* Convene a national reconciliation conference in April or May in either Mogadishu, Addis Ababa or Washington.

* Appoint a committee of representatives from all 14 factions to prepare an agenda and other arrangements for the conference.

* Create a second committee made up of similar representatives to monitor a cease-fire in Somalia.

* Call for participants in the current talks to reconvene in Addis Ababa in one month to receive reports from the two committees.

The agreement seemed meager. Some outsiders even doubted whether it would be kept once the leaders return to Somalia. But U.N. officials have insisted since the meetings began Monday that the opening of discussions is far more significant than the details of any agreement.

“What I see is more positive than negative,” said a high-ranking U.N. official. “Almost 100 delegates from the 14 political movements are negotiating in the same hotel and meeting each other in small groups in the lobby. That is important.”

U.N. officials seem so pleased about the mood of the talks that they said they planned to put the two rival warlords of Mogadishu--Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed--on the same plane back to the capital. Aidid and Mahdi flew to Addis Ababa on different planes.

But a European diplomat said he and other diplomats felt it had been premature for the United Nations to hold the Addis Ababa talks now. “They (the warlords) are all waiting to see what their positions will be like once the Americans leave Somalia,” he said.

The Thursday morning assault on two of Aidid’s compounds in Mogadishu was made after a Marine patrol was fired on from the compounds Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, commander of the Marines in Somalia, said in Mogadishu.

He also said that gunmen in the compounds had broken the rules of an agreement by the city’s warlords with the multinational task force in Somalia to take their weapons into defined areas and store them, news agencies reported from Mogadishu.

Aidid’s aides were informed Wednesday that the compounds would be taken over, and Marines used bullhorns during the night to order the occupants to give up their weapons and surrender.

Backed by M-1 tanks and Cobra helicopters, 400 Marines took three hours to seize the compounds on the city’s northwestern outskirts.

“In simple terms, we hit them with a firestorm,” Wilhelm said.

He said he had no figure for the number of casualties on the Somali side but said there were no deaths among U.S. Marines. One Marine was mistakenly shot in the abdomen by another Marine in the dark.

Wilhelm said captured weapons included at least 15 field artillery pieces, several tanks, more than 10 “technicals” (trucks with guns mounted on them), six towed 120-millimeter mortars, an assortment of armored vehicles, heavy antiaircraft guns and recoilless rifles.