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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993                   TAG: 9308280132
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

NEW U.S. GOAL: DISARM WARLORDS

Making the disarming of warlords a specific American military goal, Defense Secretary Les Aspin said Friday that U.S. combat troops would not leave Somalia until much of the warlords' heavy weaponry has been seized, the capital is secure and police forces are set up.

While Aspin left the commitment open-ended, there were new indications Friday of imminent action to remove what the United Nations sees as the key obstacle to security in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu - the presence of warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid.

Sources confirmed that among the 400 highly trained U.S. combat troops dispatched to Somalia this week were members of the Delta Force, an elite Army unit tailored for, among other things, fast surgical strikes.

In the most comprehensive justification to date of the American presence in Somalia, Aspin described the shift in goals from the purely humanitarian to making Somalia secure enough for political and economic rebuilding.

His speech to a Washington think tank also for the first time made seizing the warlords' heavy weapons a specific American military goal, saying, "We must make real progress toward taking the heavy weapons out of the hands of the warlords."

After former President Bush sent U.S. forces late last year to quell the chaos blocking food supplies to starving Somalis, American commanders rejected demands by U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to expand their mission and disarm the warlords.

Much of this task was left until after most U.S. forces pulled out in May and the United Nations took over the command of a multinational force.

Since the United Nations assumed command, however, its forces have encountered continued attacks from forces loyal to Aidid, whom the United Nations holds responsible for the deaths of allied soldiers.

For weeks, the United Nations has been hoping to capture Aidid, and Aspin's statement Friday that "the security issue in south Mogadishu must be settled" was seen as code for either capturing or killing the warlord.

by CNB