Task Force Ranger
On August 8, 1993, Aidid's militia detonated a remote controlled bomb against a U.S. military vehicle, killing four soldiers. Two weeks later, another bomb injured seven more. In response, President Clinton approved the proposal to deploy a special task force, composed of 400 U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos. This unit, named Task Force Ranger, consisted of 160 elite U.S. troops. They flew to Mogadishu and began a manhunt for Aidid.
On August 22, the force was deployed to Somalia under the command of Major General William F. Garrison, JSOC's commander at the time.
The force consisted of:
- B Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment
- C Squadron, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D)
- A deployment package of 16 helicopters and personnel from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160th SOAR), which included MH-60 Black Hawks and AH/MH-6 Little Birds.
- Navy SEALs from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU)
- Air Force Pararescuemen and Combat Controllers from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
Read more about this topic: Operation Gothic Serpent
Famous quotes containing the words task and/or force:
“Wittgenstein imagined that the philosopher was like a therapist whose task was to put problems finally to rest, and to cure us of being bewitched by them. So we are told to stop, to shut off lines of inquiry, not to find things puzzling nor to seek explanations. This is intellectual suicide.”
—Simon Blackburn (b. 1944)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)