Battle of Mogadishu
Battle of Mogadishu, battle between U.S. forces and Somali militia fighters in Mogadishu, Somalia, on October 3–4, 1993. It marked the end of a U.S.-led military intervention in Somalia, which had begun in 1992.
U.S. forces had entered Somalia to protect the distribution of food aid, which was being hampered by local warlords in the absence of a functional government, absent from the country since the dictatorship of Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. The United Nations had taken on the task of nation-building by attempting to build a coalition government, and, at the orders first of Presidents George H.W. Bush and then Bill Clinton, the U.S. Army took the lead in this work, dubbed Operation Restore Hope. The Americans decided they had to neutralize the warlord they identified as the worst offender, Muhammad Farah Aydid, who had refused to participate in any power-sharing agreement and whose Habr Gidr clan militia had been principally responsible for ousting Siad Barre. Major General William Garrison was tasked with leading a raid by U.S. special operations forces, composed of Army Rangers, 10th Mountain Division soldiers, and Delta Force fighters, on the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu, where Aydid was thought to be hiding.
On October 3, Operation Gothic Serpent began. Landed from helicopters, an assault group secured the hotel and took 24 prisoners—although not Aydid, who was absent. Special operations forces in a column of vehicles following to extract them from the hotel were delayed by Somali road blocks and subjected to continual fire. Two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenades, leaving surviving aircrew at risk at the helicopter crash sites. Most of the troops fought through to the first crash site, but they were then pinned down under heavy fire. The troops could only shelter in nearby houses and wait for morning. Two U.S. soldiers reached the second crash site and fought off Somalis fighters for a short time before they were killed and the helicopter pilot captured.
The next morning a U.S. and UN relief force of about 100 vehicles fought its way to the first crash site and extracted survivors, fighting a running battle every step of the way. The bodies of dead Americans were dragged through the streets by Somalis. The battle was considered a fiasco for U.S. forces, and it effectively spelled the end of the U.S. mission in Somalia, with Clinton pulling troops out soon afterward.
U.S. casualties in the Battle of Mogadishu numbered 18 dead and 84 wounded among fewer than 200 personnel involved in the initial assault; perhaps 700 to 1,500 Somalis died (the total is unknown). There were also 13 casualties among UN personnel. The Battle of Mogadishu incurred the largest number of U.S. casualties in direct conflict since the Vietnam War.
Despite that loss of life and the subsequent withdrawal, the U.S. Army considers the Battle of Mogadishu to be a tactical success in which a force of fewer than 100 held off a heavily armed opponent at least 10 times stronger. The Battle of Mogadishu and the run-up to it are described in Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999), which was adapted as the film Black Hawk Down.