Somalia intervention

Somalia intervention, United States-led military operation in 1992–93 mounted as part of a wider international humanitarian and peacekeeping effort in Somalia that began in the summer of 1992 and ended in the spring of 1995. The intervention culminated in the so-called Battle of Mogadishu on October 3–4, 1993, in which 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somali militia fighters and civilians were killed.

The events that led to the 1992 intervention in Somalia began in 1991, when the Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in a military coup staged by a coalition of opposition warlords. The two most powerful warlords—Cali Mahdi Maxamed (Ali Mahdi Muhammad) and Muhammed Farah Aydid—soon began fighting among themselves.

The incessant conflict led to the destruction of the country’s agriculture and consequently to nationwide famine. By the fall of 1991, the United Nations (UN) estimated that 4.5 million Somalis were on the brink of starving to death. Under international pressure, the warring factions, including Aydid, agreed to a cease-fire, allowing UN observers to enter the country and organize a humanitarian effort there.

In April 1992 the UN humanitarian effort, known as Operation Provide Relief, arrived in Somalia. However, the undertaking proved to be extremely difficult, as various Somali militias disregarded the cease-fire and engaged in extensive fighting as well as in large-scale hijacking and looting of international food convoys.

U.S. President George H.W. Bush, in his last weeks in office, proposed to the United Nations that American combat troops be sent to Somalia to protect aid workers. The UN accepted Bush’s proposal, and on December 9, 1992, a force of about 25,000 U.S. troops began to arrive in Somalia.

The military operation was beset with difficulties from the start. The lack of a national Somali leadership, as well as the daily mayhem in the streets of the capital city of Mogadishu, bedeviled the security operation. Unsatisfied with the mission’s results, the new U.S. president, Bill Clinton, ordered the number of U.S. troops to be reduced.

By June 1993, only 1,200 American combat soldiers remained in Somalia, aided by troops from 28 other countries acting under the authority of the UN. The already unstable situation took a turn for the worse when 24 Pakistani soldiers were ambushed and killed while inspecting a weapons-storage facility. The UN unofficially blamed Aydid’s militia and passed a resolution calling for the apprehension of those responsible for the massacre.

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During the next two weeks, U.S. and UN troops attacked targets associated with Aydid’s forces but did not succeed in capturing the general. In late August a U.S. special operations task force of more than 400 flew into Somalia with orders to apprehend Aydid. The task force conducted six missions against Aydid’s forces over the month of September and succeeded in capturing some of Aydid’s associates.

On October 3, 1993, the U.S. forces staged a seventh attempt to capture Aydid and his top lieutenants. The objective was the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu, where the targets were thought to be meeting. The mission, which called for a small assault team of commandos from the U.S. Army’s Delta Force to apprehend targets in the hotel while U.S. Army Rangers guarded the area around the site, did not go as planned. The trouble began when one of the Black Hawk helicopters used in the mission was shot down near the hotel. Rushing toward the site of the crash to rescue the crew, other U.S. troops came under a heavy barrage of fire. A second Black Hawk helicopter was shot down less than half an hour later. Hundreds of Somali fighters filled the streets, and the U.S. soldiers became trapped.

After 17 hours of continuous fighting, the surviving U.S. troops were finally rescued by an international force. The battle left 18 U.S soldiers dead and 84 wounded. On the Somali side, at least 300 people were wounded, many of them civilians caught in the crossfire. Although the mission was technically successful—several high-ranking Aydid associates were apprehended—it was widely perceived as a failure because of its high cost in human lives.

Soon after the incident at Mogadishu, Clinton withdrew all U.S. troops from Somalia. A year later UN troops were also withdrawn, leaving the country engulfed in clan warfare.