
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 28, 1994                    TAG: 9406280347 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A11    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: 940628                                 LENGTH: WASHINGTON

NORFOLK-BASED WARSHIPS HEAD TO INDIAN OCEAN

{LEAD} Four Norfolk-based warships carrying about 2,000 Marines moved south through the Suez Canal on Monday, headed for the Indian Ocean in what a Clinton administration official described as a response to deteriorating conditions in Somalia.

The Guam, an amphibious assault ship; the Austin, an amphibious transport dock ship; the Tortuga, a dock landing ship; and the Harlan County, a tank landing ship, are carrying the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C.

{REST} The ships and their crews are based at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base and are on a regularly scheduled deployment. They had been operating in the Mediterranean Sea.

About 50 Marines are in Somalia, assigned to guard the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu. They're the last remnants of a force that reached 26,000 in late 1992, after then-President George Bush sent them in to protect humanitarian relief efforts.

After failing in an effort to capture a Somali warlord, the Clinton administration pulled out of the divided and impoverished country this spring. Since then, there have been reports of escalating fighting and terrorism in Somalia, long torn by civil war. by CNB