Plunging Ashore into Blazing -- TV Lights?

TARAWA IT WAS NOT. TO BE SURE, THE U.S. MARINES who hit the sands of Somalia before dawn last Wednesday were wearing full battle dress; an advance guard of Navy SEALs sported camouflage paint. But the Marines jumped from hovercrafts and helicopters into a blaze not of gunfire but of TV lights, aimed and fired by a media army that had flown into the capital of Mogadishu in advance. Hardly any Somalis were to be seen; a few who showed up later wanted to shake hands.

The Marines quickly took control of Mogadishu's airport and docks. By Wednesday afternoon, the first plane in six weeks to bring in foreign food had landed. Two Somalis were killed and seven more injured on Thursday when their unarmed van crashed into a checkpoint established by French Foreign Legionnaires. Other Somalis were believed to have died Saturday when two U.S. Cobra helicopter-gunship crews returned fire and destroyed three armed Somali vehicles, including an armored personnel carrier. A third helicopter, hit by bullets in a separate incident, flew off because there were too many civilians nearby to risk shooting back. But for the most part, armed gangs vanished from the streets of Mogadishu. At week's end the country's two main warlords met - for the first time in more than a year, under U.S. auspices, to vow truce and cooperation.

Whether the warlords' word will be obeyed, especially in the anarchic countryside, is another matter. Amid continued reports of bloody clan battles, kidnapping of relief workers and looting of food supplies, U.N.-sponsored troops could not quickly get outside Mogadishu to help. They did seize an airstrip at Bale Dogle, about 60 miles outside the capital, but postponed a truck convoy to Baidoa, in the heart of the famine zone 150 miles from Mogadishu, until sufficient force could be mustered.

Somalia is a desert country with no railroads and not much of anything else. Ships and planes must bring in not only personnel -- 28,000 American and 2,000 French troops, plus contingents from about a dozen other countries -- but also all their vehicles, gasoline, electric generators and even their water. There is also continuing confusion about their mission. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali told American officials that besides shooing away looters and distributing food, troops should disarm Somali war bands and train a military police force before leaving the country in the hands of a U.N. peacekeeping force.

Even so, the initial success raises anew the question: If Somalia, why not Bosnia? U.S., European and U.N. officials are in fact discussing possible intervention: shooting down Serbian planes now venturing with impunity into a supposed no-fly zone, perhaps even bombing Serb supply lines and artillery emplacements. But nobody is talking publicly of sending in U.S. ground troops. In Bosnia, unlike Somalia, a lot of them might get killed. (See related cover stories beginning on page 29.)