Marines Suffer 1st Fatality on Somalia Mission

American forces in Somalia suffered their first fatality Tuesday as a Marine from a Southern California base was killed when a U.S. security patrol came under fire, according to Pentagon officials.

The dead Marine was with the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, based at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in California, according to base spokesman Capt. John Manley.

The Marine’s name was withheld, but authorities confirmed after notifying next of kin that he was from Elizabeth, N.J.

The incident occurred in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, near the airport that has served as the principal staging area for the massive U.S. humanitarian operation. While conducting a routine patrol around the airport’s security perimeter, a small group of Marines came under fire and shot back.

“In the ensuing engagement,” the Pentagon said in a brief announcement released Tuesday night, “one U.S. Marine was killed.”

The Pentagon said it had no information on Somali casualties in the firefight.

The death came as U.S. forces in Somalia were stepping up their efforts to disarm Somali gangs--a move that officials have warned would likely result in casualties. In the last two days, the Marines reported carrying away 16 truckloads of weapons and ammunition from gun markets and caches, including 265 rifles and assault guns and 55 machine guns.

Before releasing the sketchy account of the Marine’s death, the U.S. military had reported one of its quietest days yet during Operation Restore Hope, which began Dec. 9.

A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Marines withdrew from the area after the firefight. When the unit regrouped, a count was made and one Marine was missing. The Marines returned to the scene and found the body, the official said.

A Pentagon statement said the Marine was taken to the U.S. Army Field Hospital in Mogadishu, where he was pronounced dead.

U.S. military personnel operating in Mogadishu had been coming under sniper fire off and on for days, officials said.

Virtually all the Marines in Somalia are from installations in Southern California, including Camp Pendleton and the Twentynine Palms base. There are now roughly 22,000 U.S. troops in Somalia and in the waters off the East African country.

Manley, the Twentynine Palms spokesman, said he had been inundated with calls Tuesday night from parents and wives, wanting to know if the fallen Marine was their son or husband.

“There’s a lot of concern, a lot of sadness,” he said. “Any time a casualty is taken, there’s concern for the family, the unit, the fellow Marines.”

Manley said a grim sense of deja vu was beginning to play itself out on the base, which lost several Marines to the Persian Gulf War.

“Everyone’s just waiting to hear,” he said. “Just waiting to hear the man’s name.”

Tuesday’s fatality marked the first time U.S. troops have been hit by gunfire, although there have been sporadic exchanges of gunfire between Americans and Somali gunmen. A civilian Army employee was killed Dec. 23 near the city of Bardera when the vehicle he was riding in hit a land mine.

The Somali crisis also hit a snag on the diplomatic front Tuesday. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, negotiators from 14 warring factions have been unable to agree on the number of representatives from each side and the agenda for a broader conference on reuniting the country, the Associated Press reported.

At Tuesday’s session, Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi called the groups to his palace but was unsuccessful in his mediation bid.

The conference, scheduled for March 15 in Addis Ababa, hinges on whether the warring sides can sign the draft cease-fire and disarmament agreement now before them. The proposal calls for the factions to turn in their weapons by March 1.

There is skepticism that such an agreement could be enforced. Asked about this, the U.N. spokesman in Mogadishu, Farouk Mawlawi, said he has faith in the provisions of the text, which call for establishing a U.N.-sponsored task force to supervise the cease-fire, the AP reported.