Somali Militiamen Loyal to Warlord Attack U.N. Base

Militiamen loyal to powerful Somali faction leader Mohammed Farah Aidid attacked and disarmed Zimbabwean U.N. peacekeepers stationed in the central town of Belet Huen, a U.N. military spokesman said Saturday.

“We are unable to make contact with the troops, and the situation is still somewhat confused,” Maj. Richard McDonald, the U.N. military spokesman, told reporters.

McDonald said the United Nations did not know whether there were any casualties after skirmishes that began Friday. He gave no further details, and it was not immediately known how many Zimbabweans were in the town--scene of recent fighting between feuding militias loyal to Aidid and his rival, northern Mogadishu warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed.

Unconfirmed reports said militiamen of the Habre Gedir sub-clan allied with Aidid attacked the compound of about 150 Zimbabwean peacekeepers on Somalia’s western border with Ethiopia, confiscating the peacekeepers’ weapons.

At a news conference earlier last week in Nairobi, Kenya, U.N. special envoy Victor Gbeho acknowledged that the lightly armed Zimbabweans were no match for the militias, which have rearmed since the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers in March.