Scisrsu. News digest
U.S. Marines bring peace to Somalian capital
Troop commanders looking
to objectives farther inland
WASHINGTON — U.S. com
manders in Somalia are monitor
ing intelligence reports of fighting
among rival clans in outlying areas
but expect no delay in expanding
operations beyond Mogadishu, se
nior Pentagon officers said
Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Martin L. Brandtner,
who is overseeing the operation in
the office of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told reporters at the Penta
gon that the 1,700 Marines in
Mogadishu were preparing to seize
their next objective: Baidoa, an
outpost in the center of the famine
zone 200 miles northwest of the
capital.
The chief of intelligence for the
Joint Chiefs, Rear Adm. Michael
W. Cramer, said there had been
factional fighting in recent days in
several towns where U.S. troops
are headed later in the operation to
provide security for relief supplies.
Cramer estimated that the four
major factions in Somalia have
between 12,000 and 28,000 men
underarms. Their weapons include
mortars, 107mm recoilless guns,
rocket launchers, 7.62mm machine
guns, 105mm artillery pieces, anti
air missiles and many smaller arms
such as AK-47s and grenades.
“Our assessment of no orga
nized resistance in Mogadishu is
holding,” he said, adding that it
was too early to know whether
there would be opposition else
where.
Brandtner said that by Thurs
day, the commander of Operation
Restore Hope, Marine Corps Lt.
Gen. Robert Johnston, would ar
rive with his support staff in
Mogadishu.
Cramer said U.S. intelligence
sources had reported shooting in
“inter-clan” clashes in Baidoa as
rival factions contest for territorial
advantage.
“That. . . seems to have sub
sided,” he said, adding that secu
rity conditions in Kismayo, a sea
port in the extreme south of Soma
lia, were “not as good” as else
where.
MOGADISHU, Somalia — U.S.
Marines freed the capital from the
grip of warring gunmen Wednesday,
and opened the way for mighty air
convoys of soldiers and supplies to
revive Somalia’s starving interior.
The firstmercy flightto Mogadishu
hours after troops stormed ashore
brought in powdered formula for fam
ished children and adults.
The Marines’ next goal was to
seize inland airstrips from bandits so
that big U.S. transports can fly in tons
of life-giving grain where it is needed
most. The first of thousands of Army
troops for the mission were to arrive
Thursday, Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney said in Washington.
Somalis crowded hillsides and
jammed into the airport to welcome
the 1,800 Marines who brought
Mogadishu one of its most peaceful
days since civil war broke out two
years ago.
Reporters saw youths riding in one
pickup truck dismount two machine
guns and stow them on the floor as the
pickup approached a Marine check
point.
Mogadishu was in a festive mood
for Marine Landing Day. Youths
perched on stacks of red, white and
blue grain sacks to watch Marines dig
foxholes.
After seizing the seaside airport
and the harbor in uncontested land
— II
I’ve been waiting for
this day for so long.
— Tanner
UNICEF worker
-ff -
ings at dawn, the Marines took up
positions at three checkpoints leading
into the city.
Three Marines entered the dented
iron gates of the deserted U.S. Em
bassy and hoisted the flag on a wobbly
pole amid a litter of rusting typewrit
ers. The $50 million embassy was
looted down to the rope on its flagpole
after being evacuated last year.
Officials also raised U.S. flags on
both sides of the Green Line separat
ing the two warring clans in the capi
tal. Old Glory went up over a liaison
office in south Mogadishu and over
the former U.S. ambassador’s resi
dence in the north.
For the first time in weeks, a World
Food Program-chartered plane flew
in 17 tons of a powdery mixture of
sugar, beans, flour and vitamins given
to babies and malnourished people. It
was quickly unloaded and taken to
warehouses.
Before the Marines’ arrival, such
food convoys were guarded by mili
tiamen. Often there were clashes with
other clans, or the food was stolen.
“I’ve been wailing for this day for
so long,” said Victor Tanner, a
UNICEF worker. “This airport usu
ally is a pretty nasty place, but the
town today is like after a Sunday
football game.”
About 300,000 Somalis have died
of starvation, disease and warfare in
the past year, and 2 million are threat
ened with famine.
A last-minute orgy of looting and
shooting early Wednesday forced the
United Nations to evacuate 15 foreign
aid workers from the closed port of
Kismayo, 270 miles to the south.
In the capital, a civilian employee
was shot in the arm outside U.N.
headquarters in Mogadishu. There was
no word on who was responsible.
Marines fired some warning shots,
detained several Somalis and seized a
few machine guns or rifles, but Ameri
can officials had no reports of troops
Firing at anyone or being Fired upon.
One of the main warlords, Ali
Mahdi Mohamed, urged his followers
“to cooperate with our guests from the
outside world to save our people.”
“To cooperate,” he said, “We need
not hold guns in the streets.”
About 70 people died in fighting in
Baidoa earlier in the week, but the
Fighting died down and 19 flights
have gone into the city in the past two
days, according to Pentagon spokes
man Pete Williams.
Successful secretive shuttle mission ends in California
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. —
Space shuttle Discovery landed Wednesday,
but a leak of toxic thruster gas kept its five
astronauts scaled inside the craft following a
week-long military mission.
The leak delayed post-landing operations
but did not endanger the crew, NASA said.
The astronauts had to stay in their spacesu its
as the ground crew' worked more than two hours
in protective gear to get the fumes to dissipate.
Crews normally leave shuttles in 40 minutes to
an hour.
The substance was identified as nitrogen
trclroxidc. The leak was in a left-side nose jet
used for maneuvering in orbit. The trouble was
detected just before Discovery dropped out of
orbit for a diverted landing in California.
The landing was diverted because of low
clouds in Florida but the shuttle still had to
plunge through clouds here before touchdown.
NASA’s last shuttle mission of the year,
which deployed a secret Pentagon satellite,
touched down at Edwards Air Force Base at
12:43 p.m. A red, white and blue drag chute
popped open and slowed the spaceship as it
rolled down the base’s concrete runway.
Recent storms had left standing water on
much of Edwards’ normally dry lakcbcd, mak
ing its runways unusable.
“Great job! ” Mission Control’s Ken Rcightlcr
told shuttle commander David Walker and the
crew. “Thanks for your contributions to our
nation’s defense. Also thanks for taking such
good care of Discovery.”
The shuttle was waved off from a planned
landing at Kennedy Space Center becauseclouds
were forecast. Weather turned out to be good at
the Florida runway, according to center direc
tor Robert Crippen, and a fat, gray cloud lay in
Discovery’s path for descent to Edwards’ run
way.
NASA prefers to land at Kennedy because it
usually takes a week and more than SI million
in expenses to bring the shuttle back to Florida.
Discovery was launched Dee. 2 and the
astronauts deployed the Defense Department
satellite soon after reaching orbit.
The crew spent the rest of their week in space
conducting military experiments involving la
ser communications and photography.
An experiment for studying the tracking of
space debris had to be canceled when a battery
failure prevented the crew from ejecting six
metal balls into space from the payload bay.
- it-;
Great job! Thanks for your contributions to our nation s de
fense. Also thanks for taking such good care of Discovery.
— Reightler
Mission Control
---99 -
Religious rampage continues in India
NEW DELHI, India — Rioters
wielding hatchets and homemade
bombs rampaged throughout India on
Wednesday in a third day of religious
violence. Reports said nearly 700
people died in Hindu-Muslim fight
ing, including 200 on Wednesday
alone.
Zealots, acting in the name of reli
gion, left a trail of brutality and des
ecration as they battled over the demo
lition of an ancient mosque by Hindu
extremists on Sunday.
Since then, Bombay’s massive
slum district, Dharabi, a patchwork of
Hindu and Muslim colonies, has be
come a war zone. Nightly raiding
parties attack neighboring colonies
with knives, hatchets, Molotov cock
tails and light bulbs filled with acid.
Army units, with shoot-on-sight
authority, were sent to assist police in
enforcing a curfew in the city of 12
million, India’s largest and the hard
est hit by the religious violence.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party called a general strike to
protest the arrest of its leaders, who
are charged with instigating the demo
lilion of the mosque in the northern
holy town of Ayodhya.
Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha
Rao met leaders of the N ational Front,
a leftist opposition coalition, to ap
peal for an alliance against the Hindu
nationalist party in an attempt to quell
the violence. He accused the Bharatiya
Janata of “extreme perfidy” by en
couraging the zealots who tore apart
the mosque.
Rao’s Congress Party falls short of
a majority in parliament, and he ap
peared to be suggesting a broadened
coalition to isolate the Bharatiya
Janata.
The National Front previously had
blamed Rao for letting hundreds of
thousands of Hindu fanatics into
Ayodhya and demanded that he quit.
Devout Hindus believe the 430
year-old mosque stood on the ruins of
a prehistoric Hindu shrine marking
the birthplace of Rama, an important
god in Hindu mythology.
The mosque’s destruction
prompted widespread savagery and
destruction in India and in neighbor
ing Pakistan and Bangladesh.
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British royals call it splits
LONDON—She gets the town
house, he keeps the country house,
the kids will shuttle between homes
at Christmas. And each one gets a
crown.
Confirming years of gossip and
tabloid headlines. Prince Charles
and Princess Diana announced
Wednesday that they were sepa
rating, but had no plans to divorce.
“This dec ision has been reached
amicably and they will both con
tinue to participate fully in the
upbringing of their children,” said
the announcement from
Buckingham Palace.
A palace spokesman said Diana
will keep the couple’s apartments
at Kensington Palace in London.
Charles will retain the Highgrovc
estate in Gloucestershire, and stay
with his grandmother, the Queen
Mother, at Clarence House when
in London.
Prince William, 10, and Prince
Henry, 8, will divide their Christ
mas holidays between their par
ents, the palace indicated.
Such a separation for the heir to
the throne is unprecedented in this
century. In the last century, Queen
Victoria’s son and successor Ed
ward VII had a series of extramari
tal relationships despite an appar
ently congenial marriage to Queen
Alexandra, but the couple remained
together until his death in 1910.
Prime Minister John Major told
the House of Commons there was
no reason why Diana could not be
crowned queen — assuming that
the couple stayed married and
Charles, 44, lives long enough to
succeed his 66-year-old mother,
Queen Elizabeth II.
A divorce would not prevent
Charles from taking the throne, but
if Diana were no longer his wife,
she could not be crowned queen.
Tabloid newspapers have glee
fully described both Charles and
Diana having romantic conversa
tions with outsiders.
Former Prime Minister Edward
Heath said the announcement of
the split “must be one of the sad
dest announcements made by any
prime minister in modem times/’
“We could now be witnessing
the end of the monarchy and the
reigning queen could possibly be
the last,” said maverick left-winger
Dennis Skinner, who said the mon
archy had pushed “the self-destruct
button.”
Major retorted: “We live in a
monarchy and, if I may speak per
sonally, I hope and believe we
always will.”
NetSraskan
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