London AL-HAYAH (in Arabic) pg. 1, 4 — [Reports by Yusuf Khazim in Mogadishu, Hasan Sandarusi in Washington, and unnamed reporters in Paris, Ankara, and Cairo: “Somali Fundamentalists Threaten Americans With Repetition of Beirut Experience”]

[Excerpts] U.S. Marines began implementation of the “Restore Hope” operation in Somalia at dawn today.

Indications appeared in Somalia yesterday of the possibility of “resistance” to the U.S. forces. The Somali Islamic Union (Al-Itihaad Al-Islam) announced its rejection of U.S. interference, considering it “an invasion of an independent state and a flagrant violation of Somalia’s sovereignty.”

Observers believe that the United Nations and the U.S. command of the UN forces, pleased with Mohamed Mahdi’s and Aideed’s welcome for these forces, have not take seriously the growing strength of the Islamic Union which emerged recently in Somalia.
Last week U.S. Ambassador in Nairobi Smith Hempstone warned the U.S. Administration against repeating the “Beirut mistake” when 241 Marines were killed.

An Al-Hayah tour of the two sectors of Mogadishu revealed that Ali Mahdi and Aidid are not fully in control there, and that their control is shared by thieves, bandits, and tribes.

The forces of the Islamic Union, which is led by Shaykh Ali Warsame, are concentrated outside the capital in the coastal town of Marka. The “Union” also controls the area of Gedo in the south of the country where it has set up a local administration, in addition to its control of the port of Laas Qoray and neighboring villages in the northeast of the country.

One of the Union’s leaders told Al-Hayah yesterday that he was appealing to

“…the Islamic world to help the Somali people expel the American invaders who are behaving as if they were in their own country, making decisions and thinking that we should obey.”

_{FBIS-AFR-92-238, 10 Dec. 1992, pp. 9-10}