Top General Checking Somalia Pullout Plans

Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived Sunday to meet with American troops and review plans for withdrawing all U.S. forces by President Clinton’s March 31 deadline.

Shalikashvili spent the day in briefings with U.N. and U.S. officials and was to spend the night on an American ship anchored just offshore the Horn of Africa nation, said George Bennett, acting U.N. spokesman in Somalia.

He was reported to have met with Defense Minister Fabio Fabbri of Italy, which Italian television said is now pressing for a U.N.-led peace initiative aimed at avoiding new civil war after U.N. peacekeepers pull out.

Italy would like to see feuding Somali factions brought together under the auspices of the United Nations.

Fabbri--like Shalikashvili, on a tour to greet his country’s peacekeeping soldiers for the holidays--confirmed that Rome also intends to pull out its contingent by the end of March, Italian state TV said.

Shalikashvili is scheduled to travel inland to Baidoa today to meet with Brig. Gen. Mono Baghat, the commander of the Indian brigade that recently relieved French forces there. He will return to the Somali capital of Mogadishu tonight and meet with U.N. forces before concluding his two-day visit, Bennett said.

Shalikashvili flew to Mogadishu from Nairobi, Kenya, where he reportedly met Saturday night with retired U.S. Adm. Jonathan Howe, U.N. special envoy to Somalia. Bennett confirmed that Howe is en route back to the United Nations for consultations.

The United States began pulling its combat troops out of Somalia on Friday, starting with the battalion that took part in an Oct. 3 clash that killed 18 Americans and prompted Clinton to promise all troops would be out by April.

About 2,500 U.S. troops--30% of the total U.S. ground force--are to leave by Christmas.

U.S.-led multinational forces first arrived in Somalia on Dec. 9, 1992, to protect relief supplies to a country where 350,000 died last year from famine and clan warfare.