Word: aidid
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...might be perplexed by last week's action in Mogadishu. Under the command of a Turkish general who was advised by a retired U.S. admiral, U.N. Special Envoy Jonathan Howe, troops from five countries set about destroying the power base of Somalia's most notorious warlord, General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, beneath a hail of missile fire and cannon bursts from helicopter gunships overhead. Troops from the U.S., Pakistan, Morocco, France and Italy searched for Aidid. Prodded by Washington, the U.N. wanted to punish him for ordering an attack June 5 that killed 23 blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers from Pakistan...
Even if the operation badly crippled Aidid's forces, it thrust the U.N. back into Somalia's chaos. It also underscored the immense difficulty of the U.N.'s new role -- not only in Somalia but in Yugoslavia and Cambodia -- in trying to make peace before the warring parties are ready...
...results were visible in the tracer fire illuminating Mogadishu's sky. This time the U.N. was one of the combatants. For four nights the Somalian capital echoed with deafening explosions as U.S. AC-130H ground-support planes and Cobra attack helicopters pounded the capital. Aidid's compound, arms caches and other locations took withering fire. Before U.N. ground forces advanced on his main base, a loudspeaker truck gave his gunmen several warnings to surrender. But soldiers came under fire as they moved in, provoking heavy retaliation from...
Howe called the operation "very surgical," but Somalis were not convinced. Trust in the U.N.'s motives and skills was badly strained in the first days of the anti-Aidid campaign when at least 20 Somalis in a crowd of demonstrators, children included, were killed by Pakistani peacekeepers. Many Somalis and foreign journalists at the scene say the Pakistanis opened fire from behind sandbagged fortifications when the crowd was still 100 yds. away...
Even Somalis happy to see Aidid punished were terrified by the U.N.'s ferocious firepower and repelled by the civilian casualties that resulted...