NAIROBI, Kenya -- Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hawadle Madar said Wednesday his government is determined to crush rebels trying to take control of the capital, Mogadishu, while fighting continued onthe city streets.
'The bandits will be crushed,' Madar said in a broadcast on national Mogadishu Radio, monitored in Nairobi. 'I am asking the Somali people to keep peace while the government tries to fight the invaders.'
The prime minister's broadcast belied earlier rebel claims they had captured the national radio station.
Meanwhile, both Somali and rebel spokesmen in Rome rejected Italy's plans to evacuate Italian citizens in military planes.
Nairobi-based diplomats with communication links to Somalia said fighting continued in the capital, contradicting claims by rebels of the United Somali Congress that they controlled most of the city.
'The government is trying to pretend that everything is hunky-dory; it's quite possible there are 500 dead and there is certainly heavy fighting,' said one Western diplomat who requested anonymity.
'Fighting is very much going on as of two hours ago,' another Nairobi-based diplomat said late Wednesday afternoon. 'Everyone is pinned down in their houses. There are full-scale battles going on.'
The diplomat, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the central area of Mogadishu remained in government hands and that rebel claims that they controlled the city were exaggerated.
Osman Hashim, the U.N.'s chief representative in Mogadishu who arrived Wednesday in Nairobi, agreed that the rebels had not captured Somalia's national radio station, and corroborated reports that the insurgents did not have control of the capital city.
'The fighting is continuing in the city,' said Hashim, a Sudanese national. 'Heavy weapons were used. Many people were killed. But I can't answer as to who's in control.
All telephone and telex links with the nation in eastern Africa have been cut for two days, making contact and a clear understanding of the military situation in the country difficult.
Italian diplomatic sources contacted by the Italian news agency ANSA over a radio-telephone link with the Italian Embassy in Mogadishu have said the situation seems to have reached a stalemate. Italy is a former colonial administrator in Somalia.
The Libyan news agency JANA said Libya -- which has supported President Siad Barre -- was working to send food to the city and 'trying to come to the aid of the inhabitants of Mogadishu, who are in a difficult situation due to the struggle for power.'
Nevertheless, civilians were still fleeing from areas of combat, which seem to be near the presidential palace and the international airport near where Barre was said to be hiding in a fortified bunker.
Most foreigners fled the city last month as increasing anarchy led to tribal shootings and widespread looting. Those left behind are boarding emergency evacuation planes this week.
The Italian Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that Italy would send two air force C-130s and two smaller G-222 transport planes to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, a few hundred miles from Mogadishu in East Africa.
It said the planes would wait in Nairobi to fly on to the Somali capital 'as soon as conditions are right to permit the evacuation of our co-nationals.'
However, Somali government and rebel spokesmen Wednesday both rejected the use of military planes and ships to evacuate Italians and other foreign nationals from the embattled Somalia capital of Mogadishu.
Abdul Kadir, spokesman for the United Somali Congress, the main rebel group battling to overthrow the dictatorial regime of President Said Barre, said in Rome his forces would support the evacuation only if it were carried out by the Red Cross or under U.N. auspices.
A spokesman for Somalia's Rome Embassy warned that 'a military intervention with the declared aim of evacuating civilians is unacceptable and would be interpreted by the Somali government as a destabilizing move.'
The ministry statement said 'elements' of a paratrooper battalion would be aboard the planes 'with the task of controlling and protecting the embarkation operations.
The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday about 350 Italians still in Somalia were to be evacuated, along with about 100 foreigners of other nationality, including some Americans.
In addition the Defense Ministry said the Italian Navy frigate Orsa and a support vessel would be detached from the international fleet enforcing the U.N. embargo in the gulf to go to the Bay of Mogadishu. It said the frigate's task would be to help and protect an eventual evacuation of the Italians by sea aboard merchant ships 'in the event the air operation proves impracticable.'
Italian television reported earlier that the planes and ships were already on the way to Somalia, but the defense ministry statement showed these reports to be incorrect.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher described the situation in Somalia as 'confused' and said that the United States wants to evacuate the remaining Americans from the country, but there is no assurance that an air evacuation could be arranged safely with the fighting going on near the U.S. embassy.
Boucher said there are 37 American diplomats left in the capital, plus fewer than 50 private American citizens, most of them involved in reief operations.
Fighting broke out in the city Sunday as centrally based USC insurgents, with the backing of the northern Somali National Movement and southern-based Somali Patriotic Front, tried to overthrow the government.
Diplomats in Nairobi said they did not believe Barre, who has been in power for 21 years, would be easily ousted.
