mission, no Canadian troops had been killed or wounded by enemy forces, the sole casualties arising when a soldier shot himself in the arm while cleaning his sidearm on January 11, and when MCpl. Tony Smith negligently discharged his rifle, fatally wounding Cpl. Abel on May 3, 1993. March 4 killing On March 4, two unarmed Somalis were shot in the back, one fatally, after Canadian troops laid an ambush to try to catch petty thieves stealing from the military base in Belet Huen. This followed from a decision by Captain Michel Rainville to re-label petty theft by Somalis as "sabotage", a distinction that meant deadly force could be used to defend the base. Rainville relied on the argument that a fuel pump used to service American MedEvac helicopters had been stolen deliberately to hinder the military effort, while critics pointed out that any saboteurs likely would have ignited the thousands of gallons of fuel surrounding it. After Warrant Officer Marsh discovered the missing fuel pump, he suggested installing a large searchlight atop a tower to deter thieves. He was dismissed by Rainville, who suggested that the idea was not to deter thieves, but to catch them in the act using night vision. Rainville ordered that food and water be placed in a trailer at the south end of the compound, visible to Somalis walking past on the nearby road. Some soldiers alleged this constituted "bait", but Rainville later defended himself saying it had been to distinguish between thieves and saboteurs to prevent shooting thieves. Rainville enlisted Cpl. Ben Klick of the PPCLI to lie in a truckbed at night, awaiting potential "saboteurs" with a C3A1 rifle. From his position, he watched two Somalis, Ahmed Arush and Abdi Hunde Bei Sabrie, approach the food and water. Fifteen minutes after first noticing the pair, the thieves began to run from the base in fear they had been noticed; Rainville yelled at them to "stop", and called to Sgt. Plante, Cpl. King and Cpl. Favasoli to "get them". Plante fired with his shotgun, while King fired with his C7; Plante's shot wounded Sabrie, who fell to the ground, while Arush kept running back towards the roadway. Cpl Leclerc and MCpl Countway both shot at him as he ran, while Cpl. Klick refrained, noting that the man presented no risk to Canadian forces. Arush fell to the ground, hit by one of the