UN offers reward for Aideed arrest

MOGADISHU (Reuter) - The UN is offering a reward for the capture of the fugitive Somali warlord, Mohamed Farah Aideed. Helicopters were due to drop thousands of 'wanted' posters over the capital yesterday, promising an unspecified sum for information leading to the arrest of Gen Aideed, who went underground last Thursday.

'Wanted' said the poster in Somali over a passable hand-drawn likeness of the man the United Nations holds responsible for the killing of 24 Pakistani peace-keeping troops on 5 June which plunged the capital back into violence.

The UN accuses him of masterminding the ambush in which the Pakistani soldiers died, and of holding large quantities of arms in contravention of peace agreements he signed under UN auspices.

Tunisian and American troops killed two Somalis when a Tunisian contingent came under fire at its compound in the Mogadishu university campus on Tuesday night.

The US Quick Reaction Force, posted to reinforce the 18,000-strong UN force in Somalia, sent helicopters to the scene and destroyed a 'technical' battle wagon. It was the first serious incident since last Thursday, when four Moroccan and one Pakistani peace-keepers were killed in street fighting.

The commander of Italian forces in Mogadishu said yesterday that US Marines had intruded in an area under Italian control and provoked protests by Somalis during which an Italian paratrooper was slightly hurt. General Bruno Loi said on GR1 state radio in Italy that the UN command had failed to warn him the Marines were entering his area.