Marines Caught in Middle of New Somalia Clan Fighting

Up to 200 Somalis demonstrated against U.S. Marines on Friday, hurling rocks and setting tires afire, in the mistaken belief that the soldiers killed some Somalis earlier in the day, U.S. military spokesmen said. Two Marines were hurt by flying rocks.

The Marines said they had not fired a shot all day.

The protest in the Mogadishu port area followed a new outbreak of fighting between rival militias in which the Marines acted as peacemakers, a familiar role for them.

The Marines called in a ready reaction force and sent armed helicopters overhead, but were not drawn into the fighting, the spokesman said.

The demonstration came a day after a Marine fatally shot a 13-year-old boy who was running toward the soldier carrying a package. The soldier thought it was a bomb or grenade, the military said. The package has not been found.

Both incidents illustrate the growing tensions and potential for violence between Somalis and the U.S. forces that came here Dec. 9 to safeguard the delivery of food to the starving. Marines face snipers and looters and other random violence, in addition to clan warfare.

The chief U.S. military spokesman, Marine Col. Fred Peck, said Friday’s demonstration was unrelated to Thursday’s incident.

Peck said that a sentry saw a Somali man lying face down Friday about 50 yards from the port’s main gate. He said Somali youths threw stones at military police who tried to help, then began erecting tire barricades.

Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Ron Stokes said officials later talked to the demonstrators and found they were angry because they believed Marines had killed some Somalis earlier in the day.

“They were angry about some information they had received which was erroneous,” Stokes said.

Stokes said six Somalis had been shot in clan warfare within a mile of a soccer stadium used by the Marines as a base of operations.

Stokes said 200 to 300 Somalis were involved in the clash between rival clans of warlords Ali Mahdi Mohamed, who controls north Mogadishu, and Gen. Mohammed Farrah Aidid, who controls south Mogadishu.

Stokes said the clash broke out after Ali Mahdi supporters had tried to reclaim their homes, now occupied by squatters, in the contested Green Zone area that divides feuding factions.

He said a counterintelligence team and senior Marine officers met elders to resolve the issue. Ali Mahdi’s supporters withdrew and agreed to meet peacefully Saturday with the rival clan, with Marine officers sitting in, Stokes said.

“Information somehow got translated down in the port area (that we) shot these six Somalis. We in fact never fired one round,” he said.

Col. Jack Klimp, deputy commander of Marine forces, said Marines did go in under gunfire to remove the six Somalis, who were taken to a Swedish field hospital.