U.S. Forces Off Somalia Wary Despite Assurances

Commanders of a U.S.-led military task force assembling off the coast of Mogadishu said Wednesday that they had received assurances that Somali clan leaders will not interfere with the exit of U.N. peacekeepers from the country.

In turn, Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony C. Zinni said the 14,000 coalition forces now massed in the area have agreed with local warlords to maintain a low profile so as “not to alarm” Somalis.

Still, given the volatile history of U.S. involvement in Somalia, including the deaths of 42 Americans there, Zinni said he was prepared for the worst.

“Nothing in our security plan is based on faith or trust, I can assure you,” said the Marine general, an expert on Somalia and one of the military’s foremost strategists in non-conventional operations.

Even if an organized attack by the clans is averted, the Americans face threats from heavily armed roving bandits, mobs of looters and “spillover” fire should Somalia’s complex civil war flare up in the vacuum left by the U.N. retreat.

Indeed, on Wednesday, Somali gunmen ambushed a U.N. convoy in Mogadishu, killing two people. Four others were injured, including a Canadian, the Associated Press reported.

The gunmen abducted and later released unhurt a Somali official with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the news service said.

U.N. officials said Bill Lindsay, a Canadian security official, suffered a minor wound in one hand. Officials said he was the only foreign worker for the U.N. Development Program still in Somalia.

Meanwhile, 23 ships carrying an array of attack aircraft have now converged in the Indian Ocean for the impending evacuation of U.N. peacekeepers, a mission expected to be completed by early March.

Military personnel and equipment from seven nations are involved in the operation, including 2,700 American and 500 Italian Marines.

“We are here for three reasons: The U.N. asked us; because the U.S. brings unique capabilities, namely amphibious capabilities, and because the countries that are on the ground now were asked to come here in the first place by us. In other words, it’s the right thing to do,” said Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, in charge of U.S. Central Command naval forces. “Ours is a limited mission. It is a peaceful mission.”

But the deployment of so much military brass and firepower proves it is also an exceedingly dangerous, delicate mission for what is but an ignominious retreat.

In Somalia, the United Nations and the United States sought to end a famine and put Somalia on the road to reconstruction. That was in 1992.

Thousands of Somalis were fed in the costly campaign, but the road to recovery was blocked at every turn by warring clans. Determination by warlords to overpower each other proved stronger than any incentive the United Nations could offer for reconciliation and more powerful even than a onetime force of 30,000 peacekeepers could bring to bear.

The United States pulled its troops out of Somalia in March, 1994, and the United Nations has been reducing its presence since; 4,000-plus troops from Pakistan and Bangladesh make up the remaining U.N. force.

The Americans are trying to keep secret the exact day when their troops will land on the beach in Mogadishu to shield the final retreat. They indicated that they intend on being ashore for less than one week.