Howe and most other official analysts write off Aidid as a spent force. They say the elders of his own Habr Gedir subclan have distanced themselves from the warlord since he was routed from his headquarters in a massive show of U.N. force June 17. U.S. intelligence agents can track Aidid in Mogadishu, but “to ferret him out would cost too many civilian casualties,” said a State Department official. Instead, the United Nations is carpeting his south Mogadishu power base with WANTED leaflets. Once it’s clear the United Nations won’t back down, officials say, the country’s 14 other warlords will disarm voluntarily.
Relief officials aren’t convinced. With a few U.N. officials, they argue for renewed negotiations with Aidid. “The U.N. has backed itself into a corner,” says Mike McDonagh, field director for Irish Concern. Some of the Habr Gedir clan leaders Howe claims as supporters evidently sing a different tune when he’s out of earshot. “The whole mission is messed up,” says Faduma Ahmed Alim, a key participant in U.N.-Somali talks. “Now it seems as if the U.N. is responsible for most of the killing.” After meeting with clan elder Mohammed Ibrahim recently, Howe said he had the politician’s full support. Yet Ibrahim told NEWSWEEK the United Nations “is interfering with Somali affairs.” Meanwhile, for foreigners, Mogadishu grows more and more dangerous. Reams of anti-Western leaflets are circulating; for the first time, some now take an Islamic-fundamentalist line. Says McDonagh, “This is clearly going to go on much longer than people thought.”
How much longer, nobody wants to say. Washington planned to remove the 1,200 man U.S. Quick Reaction Force–the United Nations’ big stick -by the end of the summer. The Pentagon also plans to halve the 3,000-member support force by December. But last month’s flare-up may already have delayed that timetable, U.S. officials concede. And another confrontation seems inevitable; for one thing, U.S. and U.N. officials have discussed arresting six more Mogadishu warlords who serve under Aidid, a senior State Department official confirmed. It’s too early to call Somalia a quagmire. But the going is getting stickier.
