
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 25, 1993                   TAG: 9308250008
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. SENDING RANGERS TO SOMALIA

An elite force of 400 Army soldiers trained to strike sensitive targets with unconventional means will head for Somalia this week. But the Pentagon said the Rangers' mission is not to nab warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

"This is not an effort to go after one man," Kathleen deLaski, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said. "It's an effort to improve the overall situation in Mogadishu."

Even so, the Rangers' special training gives them the kinds of skills in unconventional warfare that would be required to flush out Aidid, who has been waging a hit-and-run war with United Nations forces for months. The U.N. called for Aidid's arrest in June after an ambush blamed on Aidid's militia killed 24 Pakistani U.N. peace keepers, but the warlord has managed to elude capture.

"Capturing Aidid is not the only way to improve security," deLaski said.

The decision to send more U.S. troops to Somalia stands in contrast to expectations just a few months ago that some U.S. forces would start heading home soon. Some in Congress have questioned the wisdom of extending the U.S. and U.N. mission from ending Somalia's starvation to rebuilding the country.

DeLaski said 400 Rangers would head out from their base at Fort Benning, Ga., "in the next few days."

An Army reference pamphlet on its Special Operations Forces says one of the Rangers' capabilities is to conduct strike operations such as raids against targets behind enemy lines, including "key enemy military-political personnel or resources." They are trained to fight at night and in close-quarters conditions such as in cities.

A senior Army officer described the deployment of Rangers as anything but routine and said the troops would not have been selected if their mission was limited to "garden-variety" weapons sweeps and neighborhood patrols.

by CNB