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Subject: U.S. Suspends Relief Flights to Somali Town<By Keith B. Richburg<Washington
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 04:30:31 EST
Message-ID: <27.1992Oct26.043031@AmeriCast.com>

U.S. Suspends Relief Flights to Somali Town<By Keith B.
Richburg<Washington Post Foreign Service<

NAIROBI, Oct. 25 - A bullet struck a U.S. military cargo plane as
it was landing at a famine-stricken Somali town today, and Ameri-
can officials temporarily suspended food-relief flights there.

U.S.  military officials said no one was injured in the incident
but that the aircraft, a C-130 Hercules, was hit in the right
fuel tank. The cargo plane aborted its landing and the crewmen
apparently discovered that the plane had been hit when they saw
fuel leaking, the officials said. Another American aircraft that
had just been unloaded in the town, Baidoba, also took off im-
mediately after the shooting broke out, they said.

Today's shooting marks the second such incident involving an
American plane since the emergency airlift to Somalia began at
the end of August. On Sept. 18, small-arms fire struck another
U.S. Hercules after a melee erupted among cargo haulers at the
airstrip in the town of Belet Huen.

Officials of the U.S. airlift, Operation Provide Relief, said
flights to Baidoa were suspended after the incident and would
remain so until commanders review the security situation in the
town, one of Somalia's most famine-stricken. They gave no further
details of today's shooting incident.

An upsurge in clan fighting and lawlessness in recent days has
disrupted international relief efforts to feed the starving na-
tion.  The main airport in Mogadishu was closed last week after a
German relief plane was hit by a bullet, forcing relief agencies
to use a smaller dirt airstrip 30 miles outside the capital.
International aid agencies, fearing a spread in fighting, have
sharply reduced staff in Baidoba after guerrillas loyal to ousted
dictator Mohamed Siad Barre seized the nearby town of Bardera.

News agencies reported that an Italian-registered relief ship at
the Somali port of Kismayo is under seige by hungry troops loyal
to Somalia's principal warlord, Mohamed Farah Aideed.

The heightened violence in Somalia is severely hampering the Un-
ited Nations' proposed new 100-day plan to move 200,000 tons of
food into the country by year's end. The violence also has raised
criticism of the United Nations for deploying peace-keeping
forces too slowly. Their presence, approved by the Security Coun-
cil, is opposed by Aideed. The warlord controls most of Mogadishu
and the country's central and southern regions.  U.S. aircraft
transported the first contingent of peace-keepers, 500 Pakistani
troops, to Mogadishu on Sept. 28. They were to secure the
capital's port, international airport and warehouses where relief
goods are stored. However, the Pakistanis still have not been de-
ployed around the capital. The port and other facilities remain
in the hands of gun-toting young thugs who will not allow relief
planes and ships to be unloaded without large bribes.

The Pakistani peace-keepers apparently will not be deployed until
their commander, Pakistani Brig. Gen. Imtiaz Shaheen, secures the
consent of the numerous clans and subclans controlling Mogadishu.
Shaheen is known to be anxious to avoid any military confronta-
tion involving his troops.

The Security Council also has approved the deployment of an addi-
tional 3,000 troops outside the capital, but Aideed has con-
sistently rejected any increase in the number of peace-keepers
beyond the present level.<

On Saturday, a senior U.N. official in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
Layshe Yaker of the Economic Commission for Africa, blamed Aideed
and Somalia's other "so-called warlords" for being "irresponsi-
ble" and blocking the delivery of relief goods to starving peo-
ple.  Today, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser
joined the growing number of critics of the United Nations who
say peace-keeping forces should be deployed even without the con-
sent of Aideed and other warlords. News agencies in Melbourne
quoted Fraser, who heads the Australian aid group CARE, as cal-
ling the world reaction to the Somali crisis "a disgraceful si-
tuation," and saying U.N. members should be providing far more
finances and personnel to peace-keeping operations in
Somalia.<02:23 10-26C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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