Elite U.S. Troops Raid Somalia Building After Airport Attack

Elite U.S. Army troops raided a building in southern Mogadishu before dawn today, snaking down ropes from hovering helicopters.

It was not clear whether the objective of the raid was Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, the renegade warlord wanted by the United Nations in the killings of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers and 11 other U.N. troops.

But one of the missions of 400 elite U.S. Rangers sent to Mogadishu last week was expected to be ridding the city of Aidid and putting an end to almost daily attacks by his militiamen on U.N. forces.

The raid, which involved more than a dozen helicopters, followed a mortar and small arms attack by militiamen on Mogadishu’s old international airport, now a U.N. military encampment.

There was no word of casualties in either incident, and U.S. and U.N. military officials in Mogadishu could not be reached for comment.

A senior White House official said “there was a routine search and seizure operation” involving 10 to 15 American helicopters operating under U.N. auspices.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that between eight and 10 people were apprehended but offered no further details. The official spoke aboard Air Force One while returning with President Clinton to Washington from his vacation on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

The raid began shortly after 3 a.m. today (5 p.m. PDT Sunday) with the thunderous buzz of helicopters whirling over Mogadishu’s southern sector.

Reporters and TV cameramen using night-vision lenses saw at least half a dozen Rangers drop by rope from helicopters over a building near Digfer Hospital in an area known as an Aidid strongpoint.

About an hour later, reporters on the roof of a hotel about a mile away saw what appeared to be a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter land at the scene of the raid, possibly to take out the Rangers.

Heavily fortified U.N. positions throughout southern Mogadishu have come under almost nightly attack for several weeks by small bands of militiamen.

Clinton ordered the Rangers to Somalia after an American military vehicle was ripped apart by a remotely detonated mine on Aug. 8, killing four soldiers.