French Kill 2 Somalis // Truck Tries To Speed Past Roadblock

MOGADISHU, Somalia French troops fired on a truck after it spedthrough a Foreign Legion roadblock tonight, and a French militaryspokesman said two Somalis died and seven were injured.

The first casualties since Operation Restore Hope openedWednesday were reported as a U.S.-French force taking command in theSomali capital prepared for its main mission: protecting foodshipments for the starving people.

In Washington, the Defense Department disclosed that U.S.commanders also had ordered the first elements of the Army's 10thMountain Division to begin heading for Somalia. The move signaledthe start of a new phase of operations in the East African country.

Advance elements of the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, were toldto begin deploying from their base at Fort Drum, N.Y., to link upwith Marines in Mogadishu.

The newly deployed Army elements total about 150 troops, andinclude a company of infantrymen and advance people such as commandand control specialists, said Army Maj. Bryan G. Whitman, a Pentagonspokesman.

Photographers reporting on the roadblock bloodshed said some ofthe dead and injured had clearly been struck by bullets. Othercasualties might have occurred when the driver lost control and thetruck slammed into a concrete wall.

"At 6:45 p.m. a civilian truck loaded with people and baggagecrashed at high speed through one of the control points maintained bythe French," said Col. Michel Touron, the commander of the Frenchforces. "Accord ing to the rules established by the U.S. command, the order to firewas given."

About 150 Foreign Legionnaires in Mogadishu are the vanguard ofan expected 2,000 French troops. Other troops have been promisedfrom a dozen nations, including Canada, Italy, Egypt and Turkey.

In a possible first step toward political reconciliation in thisviolence-wracked land - warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid announced thathe will meet tomorrow with his chief rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. IsmatKittani, special United Nations envoy, was mediating between them.

Also tomorrow, the Marines face what could be their toughestjob: taking control of the strife-torn city of Baidoa, in the faminebelt of southern Somalia. They will escort a convoy of food trucksfrom Mogadishu 200 miles northwest to Baidoa, officials said.

Relief officials reported today that a large convoy of"technicals" - the armed vehicles favored by Somali gunmen - wasspotted heading west toward the Ethiopian border.

The emergency food airlift to Mogadishu resumed just hours after1,700 Marines came ashore and seized the airport and seaport, thefirst steps in a UN-sponsored campaign to deliver aid through armedforce

More than 30,000 Marines, Army troops and soldiers of othernations will be deployed in the crippled East African land.

Until now, relief shipments have been routinely looted by armedbands of youths set loose by two years of clan conflict. Some300,000 people have died of starvation, disease or warfare, UNofficials estimate, and hundreds of thousands more are at risk ofstarvation.