Somali Employees of U.N. Ambushed, 6 Feared Dead

As many as six Somali employees of the United Nations were slain Wednesday in an ambush in Mogadishu, and the U.N. envoy to Somalia promised that peacekeepers will hunt the gunmen down.

Two of the Somalis were dragged from their car and shot to death in a busy street market in Mogadishu. Four others wounded in the attack were abducted and presumed dead, said the envoy, retired U.S. Adm. Jonathan Howe.

Howe described the ambush as an act of deliberate terrorism against U.N employees by gunmen loyal to fugitive warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. The attack took place about a mile from U.N. headquarters.

“Criminal attacks such as this . . . will not go unpunished,” Howe said. “We will use all the means at our disposal to find the perpetrators of these crimes.”

The United Nations mounted a weeklong offensive against Aidid’s power bases last month after blaming him for the ambush deaths of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers. Aidid has escaped and is in hiding, but his supporters have been linked to continuing attacks against U.N. workers.

The victims of Wednesday’s ambush worked as drivers or distributors for a U.N. office that puts out a daily news sheet on the activities and policies of the 29-nation peacekeeping alliance.

They were on their way to collect copies of the news sheet Maanta--”Today” in the Somali language--when an unknown number of gunmen attacked their car.

Two American soldiers, meanwhile, were reported recovering from injuries received in an overnight rocket attack on facilities they were guarding in southwestern Mogadishu.

U.N. spokesman Barrie Walkley said that the ambush of the Maanta employees was the first time Somalis who worked for the United Nations were fatally attacked.

Local employees recently reported receiving death threats from people who accused them of being traitors to Somali political groups opposed to foreign intervention, Walkley said.

U.S. Rep. Harry A. Johnston (D-Fla.), chairman of the congressional foreign affairs subcommittee on Africa, met with Somali leaders in Mogadishu on Wednesday, and said the majority of Somalis appear to support U.N. operations, and want the foreign troops to continue restoring order and assisting with humanitarian aid.