Somalia Battle Killed 12 Americans, Wounded 78

The Pentagon identified the American captive as Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Durant, 32, of Fort Campbell, Ky. It also identified four of the 12 soldiers killed: Pfc. James H. Martin Jr., 23, of Fort Drum, N.Y.; Pfc. Richard W. Kowalewski Jr. and Sgt. James C. Joyce, 24, both of Fort Benning, Ga., and Chief Warrant Officer Clifton P. Wolcott, 36, of Fort Campbell.

Aspin said an Army mechanized infantry company would be dispatched to Mogadishu to bolster 4,700 U.S. forces there. The unit of 220 infantry troops contains a platoon of four M-1A1 tanks -- specially fitted with plows to blow up mines -- and 14 armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles. He said two additional AC-130 air gunships, replacement helicopters and 200 other troops also would be ordered to Somalia.

President Clinton said the "modest increase" in troops "does not signify some new commitment or offensive commitment" in Somalia. "I am just not satisfied that the American soldiers who are there have the protection they need under present circumstances," he said.

The president, speaking in San Francisco, expressed his regret for the loss of American lives, saying the soldiers "were acting in the best spirit of America . . . working to assure that anarchy and starvation do not return to a nation in which more than 300,000 people had lost their lives, many of them children, before the United States" intervened last December to halt starvation and anarchy.

In a statement in New York, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali expressed "deepest sympathies to the families of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in the cause of peace, reconciliation and reconstruction in Somalia" but that the incident would not "deter the United Nations from" its mission in Somalia.

The United Nations assumed command of the U.S.-led multinational humanitarian mission in May, but since mid-June has devoted considerable effort to trying to track down and arrest warlord Aideed, whom U.N. officials blame for the deaths of dozens of peace keepers in attacks by his militiamen in southern Mogadishu. Twenty-three Americans have now died in combat in Somalia -- all but four since the United Nations took control of the operation.

Besides the American casualties Sunday, a Malaysian U.N. soldier was killed and six Malays and two Pakistanis were wounded, according to U.N. military officials. The Malay defense ministry in Kuala Lumpur had earlier said nine of its troops were wounded in the fighting and four Malay armored personel carriers were burned out and destroyed. Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak was quoted saying the Malay soldier killed was the driver of an armored personnel carrier that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Casualties on the Somali side were said to be heavy but American military officials, in keeping with their usual policy, declined to estimate the number of Somalis killed and wounded. The Red Cross conducted a count of Mogadishu hospitals and reported about 500 wounded Somalis from the battle, according to an agency spokesman in Nairobi. A spokesman for Aideed's Somali National Alliance militia told reporters that 30 Somalis had died in the fighting, including many women and children caught in the cross-fire.

Stockwell told reporters that U.S. troops fought back fiercely against their attackers and he acknowledged Somali casualties were likely high. "We had taken off the gloves," he said. "That is not to suggest that anyone was irresponsible. . . . We did the right thing."

He said the U.S. and U.N. troops received "hundreds" of rocket-propelled grenades and fire from small arms and heavy weapons, and that the American-led troops fired back with M-16 rifles, 40mm grenade launchers and .50-caliber machine guns. American helicopters providing aerial backup also opened fire with 20mm cannons and 2.75-inch rockets.

The Malaysians and Pakistanis were part of an American-led "task force" of several hundred foreign troops, including a company of armored American Humvee vehicles, a platoon of elite U.S. Army Rangers, and two U.S. Army infantry units that moved out of their staging area at Mogadishu's airport to rescue the Rangers pinned down at the site of the downed helicopter. The trapped rangers were in the Bakara market section of the city, an area known as a stronghold of Aideed and one of the few areas of the capital where the warlord moves relatively freely -- despite the U.N. order for his arrest and a $ 25,000 reward offer for anyone who turns him in.

The violence began at dusk on Sunday, when American Rangers led a "search and seizure" operation about a mile east of Bakara market, in an effort to round up and arrest some of Aideed's top lieutenants. Stockwell denied today that the mission's initial goal was to arrest Aideed himself, saying in a telephone interview: "It was not aimed at Aideed, and we did not get Aideed." But late Sunday, Pentagon officials in Washington were openly telling reporters that Aideed might be captured and that Clinton might be able to announce the arrest when he arrived on the West Coast later that day.

In the end, the American troops managed to detain two dozen Somalis meeting at the Olympic Hotel, including two whom Stockwell described as "key" Aideed lieutenants, responsible for many of the recent ambush attacks against U.N. troops. Of the 24 detainees, Stockwell said three were killed in cross-fire as the troops arresting them came under attack, and a fourth was wounded and is being treated.

U.N. officials declined to provide the names of those detained, but Pentagon officials identified them as political adviser Osman Salah and Mohamed Hassan Awale, a former Washington taxicab driver who has functioned as Aideed's foreign policy adviser. Awale has long been considered a member of the warlord's inner circle.

The chief U.N. envoy in Somalia, retired U.S. Navy Adm. Jonathan T. Howe, said in a prepared statement that the 21 Somalis detained were "suspected of complicity" in the ongoing attacks against American and U.N. troops in the capital, and he said he hoped the arrests "will effectively contribute to stemming the violence in south Mogadishu."