Blast Hits Mogadishu Port; U.N. Suspects Somali Revenge Attack

An explosion damaged part of the U.N.-controlled new port in Mogadishu on Monday, and U.N. officers said they suspect it was in revenge for U.S. troops’ shooting of two Somali militiamen.

The blast blew apart a 65-foot section of wall and 15 roadside stalls and tea shops and wrecked three shipping containers used as barricades. No casualties were reported.

The Somalia National Alliance, the umbrella group led by warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, blamed the United Nations, saying a U.S. ship had fired a missile at the port in a ploy to drag Aidid’s forces into a new war.

A spokesman for the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) denied this and said that Somalis were responsible.

“It is our information the explosion was probably caused by dynamite, possibly with a timed device. . . . This was the work of locals,” said the spokesman, Maj. Tim McDavitt.

U.N. military officers said they believed the attack was in revenge for U.S. troops’ shooting of Somali militiamen in an armed vehicle known as a “technical”--a pickup truck mounted with a light machine gun--near the port Sunday.

U.N. officials said soldiers fired two shots at the vehicle and that both hit passengers. One was presumed dead after he fell out of the truck and was taken away by Somalis. The other wounded man was driven off in the pickup.

The Somalia National Alliance said two civilians were killed and two wounded by U.S. snipers in the shooting near the port. An alliance spokesman urged U.N. and U.S. forces to stop firing on Somalis for no reason but also warned armed Somalis to stay away from U.N. positions.

Alliance spokesman Abdi Abshir Kahiye said that weapons experts from the group inspected the site of the port explosion and that it could not have been caused by any weapons possessed by the militia.

The blast was near an area where a land mine destroyed two U.S. Humvee vehicles in September.