Somali Factions Battle in Mogadishu : Africa: Marines position themselves in middle of rival clans to defuse conflict but suffer no casualties.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Armed with rifles, grenades, sticks and stones, rival clans clashed Saturday for the second day along the contested Green Line that divides Mogadishu.

More than 100 U.S. Marines positioned themselves directly between several hundred shouting, rock-throwing Somalis from the two factions. None of the attacks was directed at the Marines, and they held their fire.

“The only thing we’re trying to do here is keep them from killing each other,” said the Marine commander on the scene, Lt. Col. Ed Lesnowicz of Santa Cruz, Calif.

“So far we’ve been able to keep the groups out of a major confrontation,” he said.

Just the same, Lesnowicz reported that Marines took eight Somalis wounded by gunfire and grenades to hospitals.

One was a fatally wounded 13-year-old boy who was dumped on the Marine lines after grenade fragments struck his head.

The Marines suffered no casualties, but that didn’t allay the tension.

“Everybody’s frightened,” said Lance Cpl. Raymond Marmolejo, 22, of Los Angeles. “No incidents yet, but most of the people are fighting, and they’re getting pretty close to where we’re at. They’re all over.”

Despite the fighting, 10 relief agencies under the auspices of CARE began their first joint distribution of wheat and other dry food for 175,000 needy and displaced Somalis in Mogadishu, the capital. The program is to last three months.

The first convoys that went out Saturday were escorted by foreign troops.

Distribution sites where the wheat was unloaded were heavily guarded by Somali national police.

Meanwhile in southern Somalia, a U.S. military spokesman said Saturday that the country’s most stubborn warlord has agreed to observe a cease-fire and has pulled back his troops.

But the account by the spokesman, Col. Fred Peck, differed from the account provided by a U.N. spokesman earlier in the day.

Speaking to reporters, Peck said that Mohamed Siad Hirsi, who goes by the nom de guerre Gen. Morgan and is the son-in-law of ex-leader Mohamed Siad Barre, had recently pulled his forces back 80 miles from the southern port of Kismayu.

Morgan’s forces were attacked by U.S. Cobra helicopter gunships Jan. 25 and Feb. 1 when they moved to threaten Kismayu.

But U.N. spokesman Farouk Mawlawi said earlier Saturday that up until late Friday evening Morgan’s forces were disobeying orders to move. The orders were set to expire Friday afternoon.

Mawlawi told reporters that the U.S.-led task force had ordered Morgan to move his forces to a specific area by midafternoon Friday but they had not moved by Friday evening.

Morgan has been the most stubborn of Somalia’s militia leaders in resisting the orders of the multinational force sent to protect famine relief supplies.

In his briefing with reporters, Peck said that Morgan met with U.S. officials Saturday at Hoosingo, near the area where the Cobra attacks had taken place, and promised to observe a cease-fire agreed to by the leaders of Somali clans last month during peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

“There was no ultimatum. The word was passed. . . . He beat the deadline,” Peck said of the pullback by Morgan’s troops.

Most of Somalia’s other warlords have placed their heavy weapons in areas agreed to by the 23-nation task force, although large stocks of hidden arms and ammunition are still discovered by the task force almost daily.