Mogadishu, Wednesday
AMERICAN troops, vowing to get tougher on the ''bad guys'' in Somalia,
have killed two gunmen and uncovered caches of arms and ammunition, a US
military spokesman said today.
Marine Colonel Fred Peck said a Marine reconnaissance team came under
fire after dark yesterday near the town of Afgoi, 25 miles west of the
Somali capital.
''They were watching an area where some Somali gunmen had been setting
up roadblocks and harassing travellers,'' Peck told a news conference.
The Marines were confronted by a Somali who fired at them, Peck added.
They returned fire and shot the gunman twice. He died as the Marines
were taking him to hospital in Mogadishu.
The shooting at Afgoi brought to at least eight the number of Somalis
killed by the US-led multinational task force since US Marines began
pouring into Mogadishu on December 9 to protect famine relief supplies
from gunmen and bandits.
''It's pretty much (that) we want to take out the bad guys,'' said
another military spokesman, Air Force Captain Joe Davis, commenting
earlier on the Afgoi incident.
Peck said US troops also uncovered a cache of TNT explosives near
Afgoi today and blew it up.
Another Marine investigating a building in north Mogadishu used by
Somali snipers found a large cache of mostly Soviet-made weapons,
including artillery pieces and ammunition.
In north Mogadishu, reporters saw Marines tow away two ''technicals'',
the armed pick-up trucks which used to rule the streets of the wrecked
capital, terrorising residents.
The technicals have mostly gone from the streets. But the sound of
gunfire is still common, as are armed robberies.
A Somali employee of the Associated Press news was shot in the back
and fatally wounded yesterday after coming to the aid of an expatriate
AP staff member being robbed in central Mogadishu.
Twelve of 15 Somali factions at talks in Addis Ababa made progress
today towards organising a peace conference. But a UN official said
problems remained and the talks had been extended.--Reuter.
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