Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260172
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Early Saturday, Somalian time, three American airmen were killed when the Blackhawk helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
The attack "underscores the need to re-establish security in Mogadishu to prevent the international humanitarian efforts from being undermined," White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said.
Opposition to the Somalian mission could accelerate in Congress into calls to bring U.S. forces home.
One senior lawmaker who has already criticized the mission, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., renewed his call for a withdrawal of the estimated 5,000 U.S. troops in Somalia.
"Having completed the original mission to feed the starving people of Somalia, we should bring our military forces home. Without a legitimate purpose, we will be drawn further into this quagmire, with a very real prospect for the continued loss of American lives," Byrd said within hours of the latest attack.
The attack in Mogadishu was the bloodiest incident involving U.S. forces in Somalia since four Americans were killed when their truck was blown up by a mine Aug. 8. It was the first time that an aircraft has been shot down over Mogadishu, marking what might be a significant escalation in the hit-and-run guerrilla war being waged by forces loyal to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid.
The pilot and co-pilot of the helicopter survived the crash-landing and fled to safety after seeing that their crewmen were dead, according to U.N. officials and news reports from Mogadishu.
Three other American soldiers and three Pakistanis were wounded in a fierce gun battle that erupted as U.N. ground troops converged on the scene. An unknown number of Somalis were killed in that battle, the reports said.
U.N. officials have blamed Aidid and his forces for the deaths of more than 50 U.N. peacekeepers since May. After previous attacks on peacekeepers, U.N. forces have launched airborne assaults on suspected Aidid strongholds in southern Mogadishu.
On Capitol Hill, congressional unease has been steadily growing over what is widely perceived as an unfocused and perilous mission that has strayed far from its original humanitarian purpose of feeding starving Somalis.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., summed up the lawmakers' dismay earlier this month after U.N. troops fired into a crowd of women and children being used by Aidid's gunmen as human shields. "We went into Somalia to keep people from starving to death, and now we are killing women and children because they are combatants," he said.
After that incident, the Senate voted to ask President Clinton to present a new strategy for dealing with the Somali crisis to Congress by Oct. 15 - and to seek a specific authorization for keeping U.S. troops there beyond Nov. 15.
Somalia is on "the road to recovery," Myers said.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB