Heavy Somali Fighting Erodes Hopes for Peace : Africa: Clan battles rage throughout the day. Marines kill three even as factions agree to cease-fire.

Mogadishu experienced its most serious and prolonged bout of street fighting since the arrival of the U.S. Marines as clan-based factions exchanged gunfire and artillery barrages Sunday throughout most of the day.

One hospital alone received six dead and about 100 wounded from a western neighborhood of the capital. Many of the wounded were women caught in the cross-fire as the return to normal life was abruptly halted by the gunfire.

Marines stationed in the city did not intervene, although Somali snipers harassed the large Marine compound located in a stadium near the warring neighborhood. No U.S. troops were hurt, although they moved from the compound in large convoys with only rifles at the ready.

In another development, Marines shot and killed three Somalis who were apparently setting up an ambush on a main road near the old U.S. Embassy compound before dawn Sunday. Marines also fired on snipers at the Kilometer Four traffic circle, which controls access to Mogadishu Airport. There was a report of one Somali wounded in that incident.

But as the fighting raged, Somalia’s warring factions reached agreement on a cease-fire, the Associated Press reported. The 14 factions, meeting in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, said the truce started at midnight (1 p.m. Sunday PST). They also agreed to disarm their militias by March 1.

It was unclear whether the cease-fire would be observed or whether armed bands could even have been informed of the pact because of poor communications.

Sunday’s outbreak of street combat eroded hopes among U.S. officials that limited action by the Marines to destroy an occasional arms cache and confiscate weapons carried openly would send a message to rival militias and gangs in the city to maintain the uneasy quiet that has dominated for most of the month since U.S. and other international forces arrived here.

Early today, Marines swept through the Bakara arms market in Mogadishu, Chief Warrant Officer Eric Carlson said.

He described the operation as the largest of its kind the Marines had mounted since they arrived. The market lies within territory loosely controlled by warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid and Carlson said it was believed to be the biggest weapons bazaar in Somalia.

One young wounded man at Diqfer Hospital in south Mogadishu scoffed at the notion that the slightly more aggressive pursuit of weaponry was acting as a deterrent. “As you can see, I am not in a position to praise the American policy,” he said, displaying a bullet wound in his left leg.

“The honeymoon is over,” said Raqya Omar, a women’s rights advocate. “The contradictions in American policy are beginning to show. Why does the United States care about people dying of hunger and not of gunfire? Most of the wounded are innocent civilians.”

The renewed fighting also heightened concern that Somalia could return to chaos when the United States reduces its troop strength in the country and turns over significant control to U.N. forces. American commanders openly complained that U.N. officials operating in the city for several months have taken little interest in preparing for the transfer of responsibility.

“The U.N. has skipped school on this one,” said Col. Buck Medard, an officer based at Baidoa.

A U.S. congressional delegation visiting Baidoa echoed the complaint. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) told Medard that “the U.N. is dragging its feet.”

During their visit to Mogadishu, the congressmen traveled in a harrowing military convoy through the city with sounds of gunfire heard on either side of main roads.

The Bush Administration has not begun the kind of heavy prodding for action among its allies in the United Nations that it did during the buildup to the Persian Gulf War.

Relations between the Administration and the United Nations on the Somali issue have been dominated by disagreement with Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali over whether the Marines should aggressively disarm the Somalis. Boutros-Ghali wants disarmament to be largely complete before U.N. peacekeepers take over. President Bush has resisted such a program.