NEWS ANALYSIS : Gaps in U.N. Transition Underlie Somali Clashes : Africa: Troops replacing U.S. forces were not as well trained, equipped, and lacked cohesiveness, experts say.

Early last month, when the United States formally ended its five-month-long military intervention in Somalia and turned the peacekeeping job over to the United Nations, there was widespread agreement that the mission had been successful.

Relief agencies were well on their way to easing starvation among Somalis. The country’s warring clan factions had been restrained. Even Mogadishu seemed secure. “It’s a good feeling to have been a part of that,” Marine Lt. Gen. Robert B. Johnston, the outgoing U.S. commander, said.

But barely a month after most of the U.S. contingent had left for home, the situation in Somalia exploded, with a series of American-led air and ground strikes that ended with six U.N. soldiers dead and 43 others wounded--and dozens of Somali casualties.

Americans were asking, first, how had the situation in Somalia deteriorated so rapidly? And second, would the United States--which had had to send AC-130H gunships to Somalia this month to strengthen U.N. forces there--have to step up its presence for months to come?

Moreover, Washington was facing another potential embarrassment similar to the hunt for Gen. Manuel A. Noriega after the 1989 intervention in Panama: Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, whose weapons were the object of last week’s attacks, had escaped and was at large.

On Saturday, thousands of Aidid supporters demonstrated against the United Nations and the United States at a rally in Mogadishu, shouting, “Clinton is a warlord!” and calling U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali “his first chairman.”

By late afternoon, U.N. commanders in Somalia felt compelled to issue a statement acknowledging that there is a widespread perception in the country that the situation has gotten out of hand.

“There seems to be an underlying assumption that UNOSOM (the U.N. operation in Somalia) somehow lost control of its forces in a few ‘incidents’ that cost the lives of Somali civilians,” the statement said. It denied the charges and blamed Aidid’s forces for the disruptions.

Interviews with officials and private analysts here suggest that the unraveling stemmed from a series of gaps between the departure of the U.S. forces--which took place on schedule May 4--and the arrival of U.N. replacements.

Although the initial contingent of U.S. troops had taken away some of the heavy weapons owned by Aidid and the other Somali warlords, they had not made a big enough dent in their arsenals before it became time to transfer the operation to U.N. command.

At the same time, with a few exceptions--such as the well-disciplined French and Italian forces now serving in Somalia--the U.N. troops were late to arrive, poorly equipped and, in most cases, badly trained:

* More than a third of the 28,000 troops that other countries promised to contribute to the operation either arrived too late to be trained by the Americans, as planned, or never got there at all. India, Malaysia and Indonesia, for example, have yet to send any forces.

* Where the United States had provided the command and cohesiveness in the initial phase of the Somalia operation, the hodgepodge of U.N. replacement troops from 22 countries had never worked together before, virtually guaranteeing inefficiencies.

* Although the Security Council, for the first time ever, authorized the U.N. contingent to fire at will rather than shoot only in self-defense, U.N. commanders have often been slow and indecisive in retaliating against potential threats--a sign of weakness to the Somalis.

* Allied intelligence operations, which earlier had been successful in spotting--and eventually thwarting--efforts by Aidid and other warlords to ambush U.N. units from Third World countries, broke down badly in the absence of the U.S. forces.

* Troops from poorer countries, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, were woefully equipped, without the tanks, armored personnel carriers or heavy weapons needed to keep the fighting from erupting again--and Washington did almost nothing to make up the difference.

In the case of the Pakistanis, the Clinton Administration was prohibited from providing them with equipment because of Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program. Yet U.N. weapons-procurement officers made no effort to fill the gap.

Harry Summers, a former U.S. Army colonel who is a private defense analyst here, says the lesson learned from the Somalia venture is that if the United States is going to be the advance team in such operations, “We need to pay more attention to how we disengage.”

Jeffrey Record, another Washington-based military expert, agrees. “What all this shows is that it’s a lot easier for the U.S. to get into these things than it is to get out,” Record said.

For all the shortcomings of the current situation, U.N.-watchers argue that the international force in Somalia has worked far better than most of the blue-helmeted predecessors that the world organization has deployed to other trouble spots.

Although the Pakistanis were hit hard in the June 5 ambush that precipitated a series of retaliatory strikes against Aidid, they were an effective force during the ground action. Gradually, analysts say, the disparate groups of U.N. forces are learning to work together.

Whatever mistakes it may have made in leaving Somalia too early or in failing to train and equip the U.N. force, the Administration quickly realized the danger of allowing the June 5 ambush to go unpunished--and moved decisively to dispatch AC-130H gunships to the scene.

Insiders say the military success of last week’s raids--which destroyed virtually all the weapons that Aidid had brought back into Mogadishu despite a ban--is likely to help persuade U.N. policy-makers in New York that decisiveness pays off in the long run.

And there’s little question that Aidid, who is said to have been convinced that the U.N. forces would be too ineffectual to retaliate, has been crippled by the destruction of his weapons--a lesson that policy-makers here hope will help tame other Somali warlords as well.

Authorities said Aidid first attacked the Pakistanis--and attempted to disrupt the political process in other ways--because he became fearful that he would not be given the power advantage that he wanted.

U.S. officials say Aidid had plotted a similar ambush against Nigerian troops in March but was foiled after U.S. intelligence got wind of the plot.

Until the June 5 incident involving the Pakistanis, he had been biding his time for a second opportunity, the officials say.

Robert B. Oakley, the former U.S. special representative in Somalia who presided over the initial few months of the operation, contends that unlike the situation in the case of Panama’s Noriega, the United Nations does not have to capture Aidid to rescue its honor.

“My suggestion is, don’t try very hard to catch him,” Oakley said in a telephone interview Saturday. “As long as we don’t respond and he doesn’t have any particular power, it’s easier to let him loose than to risk turning him into a martyr.”