Military

DATE= 3/6/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE= AFGHAN/SOMALIA (L ONLY)

NUMBER=2-287243

BYLINE= ALEX BELIDA

DATELINE= PENTAGON

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Earlier this week, top defense officials said there were no parallels between what is now happening in Afghanistan and U-S military involvement in the war in Vietnam. Now, they are disputing any suggestions of parallels with America's more recent armed engagement in Somalia. V-O-A Correspondent Alex Belida reports from the Pentagon.

TEXT: The parallels have emerged from what some reporters see as an incident in Afghanistan that is similar to a battlefield tragedy in Somalia that was depicted in the popular book and film, "Black Hawk Down."

In the incident Monday, a Navy commando [SEAL] named Neil Roberts apparently fell from a U-S military helicopter when it took fire from al-Qaida and Taleban forces in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

A local American commander is quoted as saying an unmanned U-S surveillance plane subsequently saw the serviceman being dragged off by al-Qaida fighters and apparently executed.

But Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, the commander of U-S forces in Afghanistan, are declining to confirm that account. They say there are varying views of what actually happened.

Mr. Rumsfeld says the circumstances are not what is important anyway:

///RUMSFELD ACTUALITY///

I think what is important about this instance is not whether a -- we know a fine American's dead. It is not whether the bullet hit him from ground fire while he was still in the helicopter or after he fell to the ground and hit by ground fire or after someone came up and shot him again. We may never know that. That was a matter of minutes. What's important about this is that the United States of America did not decide to withdraw and leave the field.

///END ACTUALITY///

Leaving the field is more-or-less what happened after the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia in 1993. Eighteen U-S soldiers died in a bloody street skirmish with hostile militia that also saw U-S helicopters downed. The body of one of the American dead was later photographed being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by a mob.

The disturbing image is widely regarded as the one that shattered U-S political resolve and resulted in the eventual withdrawal of American troops from Somalia. (Signed)

NEB/BEL/MAR