In The Crossfire

By ANDREW PURVIS MOGADISHU

It began with a single shot, the high-pitched crack of an AK-47 near the K-4 roundabout. A company of Nigerian soldiers stationed nearby fanned out across the thoroughfare, weapons at the ready, scanning the surrounding three-story buildings for signs of a sniper. I heard another shot, and the Nigerians opened up with bursts from their automatic rifles. Only then did passing Somali citizens, accustomed to ignoring the occasional bang of a gun, take notice. The rat-a-tat of machine-gun bullets sent a clearer message. Men, women and children started running, their hands in the air, first in one direction and then the other way, as firing seemed to erupt on all sides.

At the Sahafi Hotel, staff members rushed to the windows to watch the action. The firing was steady now, not two minutes passing without a new round. Suddenly a deafening boom threatened to blow out the windows. The Nigerian soldiers were firing rocket-propelled grenades from the roof. A projectile tore into the white concrete facade of a dilapidated building where gunmen might be hiding. Outside, most of the crowd had vanished, but several war-hardened Somalis continued to pick their way through the streets. A woman with a bright pink turban and a lovely flowing gown tried to cross the street and suddenly fell to the pavement, screaming. A stray bullet had torn through her hip. She lay calling for help, until relatives came and carted her away. A deaf man, wandering unawares into the fire fight that he could not hear, got shot in the forehead.

Inside the hotel, four journalists took refuge in a first-floor room, along with two Swiss nurses cradling their infant children and a press officer from the U.S. special envoy's office who had come earlier in the morning to brief us. At the door, a U.S. Marine accompanying a press officer stood guard. We could hear radio reports that fighting had broken out elsewhere in the capital. One woman told U.S. military headquarters that Somalis had been seen setting up an antiaircraft gun near United Nations headquarters, a few blocks away.

One of the children started to cry, and her father ventured upstairs to retrieve her stuffed tiger. She greeted him with a brilliant smile, flinching only slightly as the gunfire exploded outside. During a brief lull, the commander of the Nigerian detachment, Lieut. Aramide Gibson, came down to escort a handful of journalists upstairs to see what was happening. Walking down a hallway, one side of which was latticework facing the street, he pointed to the building where he thought some snipers were based. "Incoming!" he shouted, at the sharp report of an AK-47, and fell to his knees. We hit the floor, and the press conference continued there, with all parties splayed in the dust.

Later, an envoy from warlord General Mohammed Farrah Aidid entered the compound to negotiate a cease-fire between the Nigerians, who continued to pound away with heavy weaponry at the buildings across the way, and the "bandits" over there. Aidid's man insisted -- unconvincingly -- that the snipers were not acting on orders of his leader. For 20 minutes, the guns were quiet. Then the shooting resumed and continued unchecked for nearly five hours. At 2 in the afternoon, it stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

After two months of relative calm, Mogadishu seemed once more to be at war. For three days last week, rampaging mobs of gunmen, free-lance bandits and youths rioted in the streets, burning tires, looting and attacking units of U.S. and other United Task Force troops sent there to keep the peace. Five American Marines and at least two Nigerian servicemen were wounded, and an estimated dozen Somalis were killed.

The trouble began on Monday when fighters loyal to Mohammed Said Hersi, known as General Morgan, a rival of Aidid's, entered the port town of Kismayu, 250 miles southwest of the capital. Within hours, 30 civilians lay dead.

Aidid could not let the challenge go unanswered. In a broadcast from his personal radio station in Mogadishu, he charged that the Americans had | engineered Morgan's coup, secretly flying him into Kismayu by helicopter. Next morning, the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, angry mobs jammed the streets of Mogadishu, setting up burning roadblocks of tires and overturned vehicles. Children who had waved happily at passing American troops the day before now hurled chunks of concrete. The next day, the stones turned to bullets and coalition troops fought back.

Despite the renewed violence, American officials said they were going ahead with plans to hand over command of the coalition to the U.N. next month. But they are eager to ease tensions quickly, to avoid the embarrassment of leaving Somalia in a hail of gunfire.

Yet the bloodshed illustrated just how fragile peace can be. Somalia's warlords, though supposedly disarmed, are still capable of turning bloody at a moment's notice. "Somali people do not care if there is a war or not," said a gray-eyed Aidid loyalist. "If you are a gunman, you can't leave off fighting. That is your job."