According to a civilian security officer working with the United Nations, the SADC troops took up positions at the city's two army barracks and the royal palace, and shooting broke out soon after.According to a Western security source close to the operation, the South Africans appeared to have taken control of the city at midday but then began to withdraw from key objectives, including the palace, leaving the city to the mob. In recent days, most government ministers are believed to have fled the country.Yesterday's fighting began shortly after dawn when 600 South African troops crossed the Caledon River in armoured vehicles from neighbouring South Africa, supported by six helicopters. Junior officers in the traditionally pro- opposition army subsequently mutinied against their government-appointed commanders and forced them to resign. The operation was authorised by the Home Affairs minister, Chief Mangosutho Buthelezi, who is standing in for President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki while both are out of the country.The operation was officially carried out under the aegis of the Southern African Development Community, but an expected troop contingent from Botswana had still not arrived by yesterday evening.Lesotho, a mountainous and deeply impoverished Commonwealth country about the size of Belgium, has effectively been without government in recent days as opposition demonstrators shut down government offices and state radio to protest the alleged rigging of general elections held last May.Two weeks ago, soldiers guarding the palace fired on police who were attempting to disperse a crowd of opposition demonstrators camped outside, killing one police officer.

He confirmed there were other casualties, but could not say what the death toll was.A Maseru hospital director, Piet McPherson, said five people were dead on arrival at his hospital and 49 were treated for injuries, including 29 gunshot wounds.As its troops went into action, the South African government announced it was intervening at the request of Lesotho's constitutional monarch King Letsie III to restore the rule of law. But its first day of foreign combat since the end of apartheid appeared to have gone badly wrong, with key objectives - including the royal palace and the main army barracks on the edge of town - still in the hands of opposition demonstrators and Lesotho's mutinous army. While South African troops continued to pound the Makoanyane army barracks with mortar fire as dusk fell, mobs of looters and stone-throwing youths were left with the run of the town.A spokeswoman for the South African National Defence Forces, which had hoped to overawe resistance in a bloodless swoop, said three of its soldiers had been killed in fighting with the Lesotho Defence Forces and 11 injured.A source in the Lesotho police, which has remained loyal to the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Phakalitha Mosisili, said two of the South Africans were killed along with 13 members of the Lesotho army early in the day after a South African task force tried to secure the strategic Khatse Dam in the mountainous interior. It was little more than 12 hours since the South African army had intervened to restore law and order to the capital of tiny Lesotho. SMOKE WAS still pouring from freshly torched and looted buildings in downtown Maseru last night, with occasional gunshots punctuating the rumble of distant mortar fire.

But at dusk two miles from the bombarded barracks, as a crowd of "opposition youths" stoned our car, forced it off the road and robbed us, we concluded that something had gone badly wrong.. But driving out towards Makoanyane barracks on the edge of town they could still be heard, dropping sustained mortar fire on the defending members of the mutinous Lesotho Defence Force.The idea behind the South African incursion was to mount a quick, clean operation to restore the rule of law and defend Prime Minister Phakalitha Mosisili's government - however dubiously re-elected last May - against what amounted to an opposition and military coup. Middle-aged women in party hats clambered out of shop fronts clutching bulging bags, while outside the palace - still occupied by opposition demonstrators and (it was reported) a very nervous King Letsie III - a mob hurled abuse at two South African armoured personnel carriers as they moved back towards the frontier.This was the last we saw of the South African military yesterday, even though a spokeswoman later announced that its 600 troops had secured and stabilised the capital. Smoke still poured from burning stores and office buildings, and sporadic shooting could be heard in the distance. Or perhaps he was drunk.Two miles further, the Kingsway, a busy shopping street when I visited a week before, was a mess of rubble and discarded loot. "We will stop them here."One of his comrades stretched across the one lane of road that was still passable, a heroic gesture of resistance.

Politeness got us past - that and the fact that a South African police officer had advised us to prize the South African plates off our car before we came across."South Africa is our enemy," shouted a young man clutching a miniature Basotho fighting stick. If it was able to hold such force in reserve, southern Africa's best- equipped and best trained army was surely already imposing its will on the lawless streets of Maseru, seen burning in the middle distance. Our feeling of security lasted about 900 yards, until we came across the first burning road block and our first opposition youths, fortifying their courage with canned lager freshly looted from a nearby store. THE BROWN armoured hulls of South African army Mamba and Casspir personnel carriers were a reassuring presence as we crossed the bridge that joins Lesotho's capital Maseru to the outside world. Some 2,000 anti-abortion campaigners protested outside parliament on Monday.The Socialist proposal would have allowed a woman to seek an abortion within 12 weeks of pregnancy if she believes a child would cause her serious personal, family or social conflict..