Battle of Mogadishu (1993) - Summary

Summary

Task Force Ranger—which consisted of an assault force made up of U.S. Army Delta Force, Ranger teams, an air element provided by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, four Navy SEAL operators from SEAL Team Six and members of the Air Force Pararescue/Air Force Combat Controllers—under the command of Major General William F. Garrison executed an operation that involved traveling from their compound on the outskirts of the city to the center with the aim of capturing the leaders of the Habr Gidr clan, headed by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The assault force consisted of nineteen aircraft, twelve vehicles (including nine Humvees), and 160 men.

During the operation, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by RPGs and three others were damaged. Some of the wounded survivors were able to evacuate back to the compound, but others remained near the crash sites and were isolated. An urban battle ensued throughout the night.

Early the next morning, a combined task force was sent to rescue the trapped soldiers. It contained soldiers from Pakistan Army, Malaysian Army and the U.S. 10th Mountain Division. They assembled some hundred vehicles, including Pakistani tanks (M48s) and Malaysian Condor armoured personnel carriers and were supported by U.S. MH-6 Little Bird and MH-60L Black Hawk helicopters. This task force reached the first crash site and rescued the survivors. The second crash site had been overrun by hostile Somalis during the night. Delta snipers Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart volunteered to hold them off until ground forces arrived. A Somali mob with thousands of combatants eventually overran the two operators. The lone surviving American from that site, pilot Mike Durant, had been taken prisoner but was later released.

The exact number of Somali casualties is unknown, but estimates range from several hundred to over a thousand militiamen and others killed, with injuries to another 3,000–4,000. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated 200 Somali civilians killed and several hundred wounded in the fighting, with reports that some civilians attacked the Americans. The book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War estimates more than 700 Somali militiamen dead and more than 1,000 wounded, but the Somali National Alliance in a Frontline documentary on American television acknowledged only 133 killed in the whole battle. The Somali casualties were reported in The Washington Post as 312 killed and 814 wounded. The Pentagon initially reported five American soldiers were killed, but the toll was actually 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded. Two days later, a 19th American soldier, Delta operator SFC Matt Rierson, was killed in a mortar attack. Among UN forces, one Malaysian soldier and one Pakistani died; seven Malaysians and two Pakistanis were wounded. At the time, the battle was the bloodiest involving US troops since the Vietnam war and remained so until the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004.

On July 24, 1996 Mohamed Farrah Aidid was wounded during a firefight between his militia and forces loyal to warlords and former Aidid allies Ali Mahdi Muhammad and Osman Ali Atto. Aidid suffered a fatal heart attack on August 1, 1996, either during or after surgery to treat his wounds. The following day General Garrison retired.