Aidid Rearmed Under U.N.'S Nose -- Cache Feared Used In Attack On U.S. Troops

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid rearmed his militiamen right under the noses of tens of thousands of U.N. peacemaking troops charged with disarming them, apparently using extortion and sympathetic middlemen to build his arsenal during his months-long battle against the United Nations and the United States, according to informed Somali sources and U.N. military officers.

Aidid's forces may have employed this arms cache when they shot down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 U.S. soldiers in their fierce Oct. 3 attack on an elite Army Ranger squad and in renewed battles with rival clans in the war-ruined capital, which flared last week for the first time in more than a year.

The Oct. 3 battle, in which Aidid's militia used hundreds of rounds of rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of rounds of automatic weapons fire against Rangers who had captured two dozen Aidid supporters, altered U.S. policy in Somalia and led to unilateral cease-fires between Aidid and the U.N. force.

In interviews with U.N. military officials here and with key members of both of Mogadishu's powerful warring clans, sources said Aidid's Somali National Alliance militia had free rein over a major Somali port and the main road linking it to Mogadishu.

An Italian mercenary in the capital, the sources said, arranged a resupply of rocket launchers, machine guns and small-arms ammunition. This took place during the four months in which Aidid evaded a manhunt by U.N. troops, including U.S. Rangers.

The weapons allegedly supplied to Aidid's militia were the same type employed in last week's pitched battles with rivals loyal to warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed.

That fighting broke out when Ali Mahdi's supporters marched to a "peace rally" across the so-called Green Line. The line - a gutted zone - has separated Ali Mahdi's area of control in north Mogadishu from Aidid's stronghold in the south since the two clans signed a cease-fire 19 months ago.

The weapons used in the clan fighting were the same types used to shoot down the two U.S. helicopters in what proved to be a turning point in the costly Oct. 3. battle that also left 77 American troops wounded and a helicopter pilot held hostage.

Aidid's ability to rearm is testimony both to his effectiveness as a guerrilla commander and to dangerous divisions in U.N. ranks here.

The warlord got new supplies for his Habar Gedir subclan militia as U.N. special envoy Jonathan Howe, a retired American admiral, sought to conduct an aggressive disarmament campaign in the Somali capital.

Howe's senior commanders, in a U.N. force dominated by U.S. military officers, refused to confirm or deny Aidid's rearmament efforts.

But there are indications that Howe, who was committed to capturing Aidid and his top lieutenants and bringing them to justice for the attack on U.N. peacekeepers last June, took steps several weeks ago to try to halt the flow of arms to Aidid.

On Sept. 30, Howe ordered the arrest and deportation of an Italian businessman who had been living in a villa in an Aidid-controlled area of the capital. U.N. officials gave vague reasons for the deportation, saying only that the Italian's guards had fired on U.N. officers when they approached his gate.

But several well-informed Somalis said the Italian was instrumental in arranging purchases for Aidid of rocket-propelled grenades and rocket launchers. Those conventional, unsophisticated Soviet-made weapons, Aidid's militiamen learned in mid-September, were effective against helicopters flying below 900 feet.

The Italian, who could not be reached for comment, reportedly carried a U.N. card identifying him as a human-rights worker with an Austrian aid agency that runs a hospital in an Aidid stronghold.

But U.N. military officials said the ID card, easily obtained in Mogadishu, was "just a cover." They confirmed that the Italian was suspected of providing arms and ammunition to Aidid.

"He brought in 50-foot trailers with all these" rocket-propelled grenades, said Abdulkadir Yahya Ali, a Somali and a U.N. political officer with ties to Aidid's rival in north Mogadishu.

Yahya also confirmed accounts from Aidid loyalists that most of the weapons used against the Ranger helicopters in the Oct. 3 battle were newly acquired rocket-propelled grenades.

Yahya and Somali witnesses said the weapons-supply routes passed through territory of Aidid supporters, an area for which Italy's military contingent here was responsible; U.N. sources said they believed the weapons arrived at the central Somali port of Hobyo, long controlled by militia loyal to Aidid.

Sources said the arms then were trucked to the capital through the nearby town of Balcad, also in Aidid turf. They said the arms probably entered the capital at Checkpoint Pasta, a U.N. post near an abandoned spaghetti factory in northwest Mogadishu.

The site was under Italian control until early September, when Italian forces turned it over to Nigerian troops under a compromise that settled one of the most bitter public rifts in the U.N. mission in Somalia.

Publicly, Rome had sharply criticized the U.N. hunt for Aidid, singling out U.S. military commanders within the mission for pursuing a hard-line campaign against the warlord that the Italians suggested was no different than Aidid's assaults against U.N. forces.

When Italy threatened to pull out of the 28-nation coalition, U.S. and Italian diplomats negotiated a settlement under which Italian troops left the war-torn capital for the largely peaceful Somali countryside north of Mogadishu.