Pakistanis Fire on Somali Civilians; U.N. Renews Raids : Africa: At least 14 demonstrators are killed in shooting. Third aerial attack targets unauthorized vehicle storage sites controlled by warlord Aidid.

Pakistani troops deployed by the United Nations opened fire on civilian demonstrators Sunday, killing at least 14 and perhaps as many as 20, hours before U.N. forces launched a third night of air strikes on the Somali capital.

In the 90-minute attack early today, a U.S. AC-130H Spectre gunship joined a force targeting two vehicle storage sites controlled by Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, the Pentagon said. The sites were believed to contain jeeps fitted with guns as well as armored personnel carriers.

It was the third such sortie over the weekend on Aidid’s weapons facilities--a move U.S. officials have said is in retaliation for the Aidid forces’ ambush-killing of 23 Pakistani soldiers a week ago.

The crowd into which the Pakistani contingent fired had been protesting the military strikes. Witnesses said the troops opened fire without being provoked.

“The Pakistanis are very nervous,” one U.S. official said. “Obviously trigger-fingers are a little itchy.”

But Brig. Ikram Ul-Hassan, the commander of Pakistani troops in the city, said initial reports indicated that his men had been fired on. He rejected suggestions that his forces were nervous or vengeful but promised an investigation.

Aidid, widely believed to have been in hiding, emerged Sunday and gave a brief interview broadcast by CBS News. The warlord said he was in his home nearby when the second attack occurred early Sunday.

“Just a few things happened, you know, only windows. . . . Just windows were broken,” he said as he called on President Clinton “to stop killing Somali people.”

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, countered that it is Aidid who should “stop the inciting action” against U.N. forces in Somalia and seek to “restore law and order” in his ruined homeland.

The air raids, the shooting on Sunday and a clash Saturday in which Pakistani peacekeeping forces fired on stone-throwing protesters demonstrate the precariousness of the U.N. mission, which began in December when U.S. troops arrived to help restore order and make it possible for relief organizations to distribute food to the starving population.

The tensions threatened to upset a carefully calculated U.N. strategy of striking Aidid while minimizing civilian casualties. The first two nights of air strikes and ground action were carried out with surgical precision, apparently leaving only one dead and two wounded.

The United Nations needs public support to carry out the relief and reconstruction programs for which it came to Somalia. U.N. officials have, with the help of leaflets dropped from helicopters and a U.N.-run Somali-language radio station, carefully laid out their reasons for assaulting Aidid, emphasizing that their fight is against one recalcitrant faction and its leader, not against the people of Somalia.

The street shootings seemed to undermine that message.

“This thing can escalate and escalate and escalate,” said Mike McDonagh, Somalia field director for the Irish charity Concern. One of the few foreign aid workers to remain through the recent turmoil, he raised the possibility of sniper attacks on troops.

“People will get angrier and angrier,” he said.

Hours after Sunday’s shooting, retired U.S. Adm. Jonathan Howe, the U.N. secretary general’s special representative, defended the Pakistani forces in a telephone interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

Howe said that the demonstrators had pressed against the Pakistani positions, using women and children to shield armed men, and that the soldiers had fired warning shots.

Neither was true, according to witnesses.

Paul Watson, a reporter for the Toronto Star, watched the demonstration, which he estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 people, head toward a Pakistani position at a traffic circle that has been a frequent flash point.

The crowd was more than a block away when the troops opened fire without warning, Watson said.

Hospitals desperately short of medicine and virtually without anesthetic reported 14 confirmed deaths, and some reports put the toll at 20. More than 50 were reported wounded.

In the three days of attacks on Aidid’s compound, tons of ammunition, tanks, artillery pieces and other military hardware were reported to have been captured, but U.N. officials have said more may be hidden.

Times staff writer Pine reported from Washington, and special correspondent Shields reported from Mogadishu. Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this report.

Chronology of Violence

Events in Somalia since U.S. forces entered the country to restore order and guard relief supplies for the starving:

Dec. 9, 1992--Hundreds of U.S. Marines enter Mogadishu to spearhead multinational force. They seize harbor and airport, hub of Somalia’s relief operation hijacked by warlords.

Dec. 11--Warlords Ali Mahdi Mohamed and Mohammed Farah Aidid announce immediate cease-fire.

Dec. 13--U.S. Marines swoop into interior for first time to provide relief supplies to the starving.

Jan. 15, 1993--Somalia’s feuding factions sign pact to disarm militias and end fighting.

March 8--As many as 23 people killed and 26 injured in clan clashes in southern port of Kismayu, according to international charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

March 28--Warlords agree to establish first semblance of government since fight began to succeed dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

May 4--The United States hands over command of multinational force to the United Nations.

June 5--Twenty-three Pakistani peacekeepers killed in ambush. U.N. blames Aidid, but he denies responsibility.

June 12--U.N. forces bomb selected targets in Mogadishu to avenge slaying of Pakistani peacekeepers, destroying arms stores and radio station belonging to Aidid.

June 13--U.N. forces blitz ammunition dump close to Aidid’s residence in Mogadishu. Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers kill at least 20 people and wound up to 50 when they open fire without warning on demonstrators in Mogadishu, witnesses and hospital sources say.

June 14--U.N. forces again bomb selected Mogadishu targets.