Somalia Offensive Over, Is Success, Clinton Says : Africa: U.N. action crushed Aidid’s military power, President says. Troops’ hunt for warlord continues.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton said Thursday that the attacks that U.N. forces have been conducting against Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid during the past six days are over, but he warned that the allies will remain poised to move again if provoked by Aidid or other warlords.

His statements came after U.S. and U.N. forces mounted fierce new attacks against Aidid’s headquarters in Mogadishu that took the lives of six U.N. peacekeepers and wounded 43 more. Only one U.S. soldier was injured; he suffered slight cuts from broken glass.

“The United Nations, acting with the United States and other nations, has crippled the forces in Mogadishu of warlord Aidid and remains on guard against further provocation,” the President said, calling the operation a success.

“The military back of Aidid has been broken,” he added. “His forces were responsible for the worst attack on U.N. peacekeepers in three decades. We could not let it go unpunished.”

At the same time, while Aidid’s weapons and military power were largely destroyed, the defiant clan leader himself remained at large Thursday, despite a new U.N. order for his arrest and a house-by-house sweep of his personal compound by U.S. and U.N. forces.

Aidid apparently escaped during an attack on his home-office complex Thursday morning and hid briefly in a hospital before fleeing.

The U.N. action, one of the fiercest that U.N. forces have fought in recent memory, left one Pakistani and five Moroccan soldiers dead, including the commander of the Moroccan contingent.

The wounded included 36 Moroccans, three Pakistanis and three Frenchmen, in addition to the American. U.S. ground troops have played only a limited role in the raids, the Pentagon said.

Casualty figures for Somali civilians were not available. However, unconfirmed reports from workers at the city’s two main hospitals, the Digfer and the Benadir, indicated that more than 60 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

Joelle Tanguy, the head of Doctors Without Borders in Somalia, said two TOW missiles fired by Cobra helicopters hit the compound of the French aid agency, International Action Against Famine, killing one Somali aid worker and wounding seven.

News agency reports described the scene during the attacks as surreal, with American helicopters crisscrossing the skies to fire on rooftop snipers while people on the streets remained almost oblivious, going about their business and strolling casually until the bullets finally edged too close.

The attacks marked a further intensification of the effort that U.N. forces began last Saturday to destroy Aidid’s weapons supply--and to deprive him of power--in retaliation for his alleged masterminding of an ambush attack that killed 23 Pakistani U.N. troops June 5.

They also confirmed that the situation in Somalia has reached a new turning point, in which the U.S. forces will have to be more active in supporting the U.N. troops who replaced them after Americans had led in pacifying the country during the first six months of the U.N. intervention.

Bob Hall, a Pentagon spokesman, effectively conceded Thursday that American troops would probably have to remain active in Somalia for longer than the Administration had indicated.

“I don’t know that I would say ‘open-ended,’ ” Hall said, in response to a question about how long U.S. troops would remain. “We (still) see the time when we will have our troops out of there, but it depends on how fast the U.N. can build up its infrastructure.”

Hall also said that officials have not yet decided whether 2,200 U.S. Marines now sailing toward Somalia as part of an amphibious ready group should be sent into Mogadishu soon. The task force, which includes the helicopter carrier Wasp, should arrive off Mogadishu late this week.

U.S. officials have said that the United Nations is seeking to cripple Aidid as a political and military power in Somalia and will move to destroy the weapons of any other warlords who refuse to obey U.N. orders to disarm.

But the defiant clan leader has been conducting almost daily press conferences since the first attack by U.N. forces last weekend. Until now, U.N. officials have been reluctant to detain him--partly because of disagreement within the United Nations about the organization’s legal authority and partly because of indecision about what the United Nations should do with Aidid once it captures him.

U.S. officials expressed concern that if Aidid is not apprehended soon, he could become an embarrassment, much as Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was for President George Bush after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which ended with Hussein still in control of Iraq.

But Clinton, in his press conference, said there is a “major difference” between Hussein’s continuing in power and Aidid’s avoiding capture so far. “Aidid is not in control of the government of Somalia,” he said.

The order calling for Aidid’s arrest, issued by retired U.S. Adm. Jonathan Howe, the U.N. special representative in Somalia, formally charges the warlord with crimes against humanity--and with endangering civilians through “organized incitement of violence.”

“It is my feeling that Gen. Aidid, at this point, is a threat to Somalia and to the international community and that he must be detained,” Howe told reporters. “I hope he will give himself up peacefully.”

The Pentagon’s Hall said U.S. troops played only a modest role in Thursday’s attacks, with a small number of soldiers from the 10th Mountain Light Infantry’s quick-reaction force temporarily replacing another U.N. contingent that had to withdraw from one of the firefights.

“There was a firefight and one unit was pulled out, and so the U.S. . . . put (its forces in as) the reserve to fill the gap,” Hall told reporters Thursday. But he declined to provide any further details.

Thursday’s attacks began much like those of the previous days. Heavily armed U.S. AC-130H gunships, flown over from Hurlburt Field, Fla., a week ago, rained cannon fire on the area, especially Aidid’s headquarters and residence. AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters fired TOW missiles to pave the way for troops.

Just after dawn, companies of troops from France, Italy, Pakistan and Morocco--some in tanks or armored personnel carriers--spread over southern Mogadishu in a cordon-and-search operation designed to drive out remaining Aidid supporters and capture the general.

To help minimize civilian casualties, U.S. aircraft had flown over the area before the air attacks began, shining searchlights on buildings and roads, firing warning shots and issuing orders over loudspeakers to flee. They then waited several minutes before beginning the firing.

What the U.N. troops did not count on, though, were the fusillades of sniper fire that greeted them during each successive sortie. By midmorning, when the troops reached the wreckage of Aidid’s stucco home and office, the casualties had mounted and the clan leader had escaped.

Despite the failure of U.N. troops to capture Aidid, Clinton insisted that the attack Thursday was a success.

“The purpose of the operation was to undermine the ability of Aidid to wreak military havoc in Somalia,” he told reporters Thursday night. He said if the warlord is eventually captured, it will be up to the United Nations to decide what to do with him.

Hall also insisted that despite some anti-U.S. demonstrations in Mogadishu, the U.N. relief operation still has “broad support” among ordinary Somalis. With aid still flowing plentifully outside Mogadishu, he said, “The overall operation in Somalia is highly successful.”