SOMALIA REDUX?

More than 18 months after U.S. forces relinquished Somalia to its entrenched warlords, the country is "moving toward all-out war," reports Nairobi bureau chief Andrew Purvis. Sunday, General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, the warlord whose fighters had attacked U.N. peacekeepers during their failed operation to feed starving Somalis, assaulted Baidoa, a city of 300,000 people northwest of the capitol of Mogadishu. At least 10 people were reportedly killed, and Aidid is now holding 20 foreign aid workers against their will. Baidoa is controlled by a rival warlord, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. "It could just have been a looting run by Aidid in order to re-establish his leadership and get some supplies for his men," says Purvis. "But if Ali Mahdi decides to go after him and resume fighting, then there will be a major catastrophe with food getting to the people. Then, the international community faces a very difficult decision of how it will intervene. Will it try it get food to the people -- and enmesh itself in the middle of a brutal civil war -- or will it watch people die of starvation?"