Mob Attack Follows U.N. Somali Raid : Africa: Pentagon says 13 are slain as U.S. gunships assault warlord’s command center in capital. Rioters kill at least two journalists at scene.

U.N. military forces firing from U.S. gunships blasted the command center of fugitive Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid in a Monday morning raid in Mogadishu, just a mile from the bustling city center where thousands of Somalis were going about their daily routines.

A furious Somali mob armed with rocks, knives and guns turned on foreign journalists trying to assess the damage. Two journalists were killed in the melee, one was seriously wounded, and two others were missing and feared dead.

Pentagon officials in Washington reported that 13 Somalis were killed and 11 were injured in the raid, which was in retaliation for Aidid’s attempts to thwart delivery of U.N. relief supplies.

But angry Aidid supporters, who took to the streets as black smoke was still rising from the strike, claimed that as many as 73 Somalis had been killed and up to 200 wounded. They brought 16 bodies--including that of a woman--wrapped in sheets and laid out in the backs of trucks, to a hotel used by journalists.

The 17-minute raid by nine helicopters is certain to heighten objections to the U.N. peacekeeping effort from critics who say the mission has grown too violent, is alienating many Somalis and is not moving the nation toward long-range solutions to its vast internal problems.

After the raid, the Italian government, which has been unhappy that its military leaders in Somalia have not been given a greater voice in the U.N. operation, called for an immediate end to U.N. combat operations in the African country until the goals of the peacekeeping mission there can be reviewed.

“Combat operations have become prevalent, and taken together they still have not opened the doors to dialogue and reconciliation,” Italian Defense Minister Fabbio Fabbri said in Rome.

“We are suggesting a cooling-off period to reduce tensions, the suspension of combat operations, the restoration of dialogue (and) an invitation to disarm.”

Monday’s raid, in which Cobra and Blackhawk helicopters fired 16 missiles and 2,000 rounds of cannon fire, was the longest and largest attack on Aidid’s fiefdom since June 30, when U.N. helicopters flying a similar formation destroyed a suspected arms cache controlled by his faction.

The assault was met by machine gun and small arms fire. But Lt. Cmdr. Joe Gradisher, a Pentagon spokesman in Washington, said there were no reports of U.N. casualties.

The facility had been used as a staging center for gunmen of Aidid’s Somali National Alliance faction in the United Somali Congress party. Inside the bombed-out compound, U.N. infantry found radios, documents and small arms.

Reporters arriving at the scene shortly after the attack described a scene of chaos. The Associated Press reported that plumes of black smoke could be seen rising amid rambling buildings in the southwest part of the Somali capital. Ten helicopters were still sweeping low over the buildings, withholding their fire while they hovered at low altitudes.

Maj. LeAnn Swieczkowski, a U.N. military spokeswoman in Somalia, denied heated Somali allegations that Somali fatalities were as high as 73. She said aerial photographs taken from the hovering helicopters showed that damage was limited to the compound.

“You can clearly see the house next door was completely undamaged,” she said.

Gradisher said there were several reasons for the assault.

“The objectives were to disrupt the center and to respond to recent attacks against U.N. forces and the recent killings last week of six Somalis employed by the U.N.,” he said.

He added that it also sent a message that the United Nations is determined to drive the Aidid faction from its base of operation “in the hope of facilitating disarmament.”

U.N. officials had no immediate reaction to the call by Italy to suspend combat operations in Somalia. But Mike McCurry, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said the United States “takes a view” consistent with the United Nations that it is “very important to bring pressure to bear on those who are trying to disrupt the humanitarian efforts” in Somalia.

Retired U.S. Adm. Jonathan Howe, the United Nations’ special envoy to Somalia, described the assault on the journalists as “an outrageous and barbaric attack on innocent people doing their work honestly and professionally.”

Mohamed Shaffi, a Reuters TV soundman from Kenya who was stabbed, shot in the leg and stoned, gave a harrowing account of how the Somali mob pounced on about nine or 10 journalists who first were escorted to the scene by Aidid supporters on the pretense of being allowed to inspect the damage.

Five media cars were swarmed over by the 100 Somalis armed with guns and knives, he said, and while some of the journalists sped away, several were cut off.

Shaffi said he was knocked down during the attack but told himself he was not going to “die on the ground.”

“I got up and ran,” he said later in the day after being discharged from a U.S. military hospital. “I just kept running. I saw a pickup truck in front of me, so I dived into the back.”

The journalists killed were identified as Dan Eldon, 22, a Reuters photographer of dual British-American citizenship, and Hansi Krauss, 30, a German photographer working for the Associated Press.

Missing and presumed dead were Anthony Macharia, a Reuters TV soundman from Kenya, and Hosea Maina, a Reuters photographer also from Kenya.