/ 2 March 1999

LIBYA SUPPORTS WARLORD

LIBYA recently donated arms to militiamen loyal to Somali warlord Hussein Mohamed Aidid, an official of a political faction previously opposed to Aidid said on Monday.”The (arms) shipment that was brought to the coastal town of Merca on 18 February were part of assorted weapons given by the Libyan government and not Eritrea,” said a senior official in the faction of Ali Mahdi Mohamed, a former rival of Aidid. The official said three shiploads of heavy and small machine gun ammunition, as well as anti-aircraft weaponry, arrived in Somalia from Libya through Eritrea in mid-January.