Word: aidid
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...mission of retaliation for the killings, one week earlier, of 23 United Nations peacekeepers. For the next several hours, flares and tracer bullets lit the predawn skies of the Somali capital as the aircraft pummeled six sites of strategic importance to the country's paramount warlord, Mohammed Farrah Aidid. U.S. forces hit Aidid's radio station, four weapons and ammunitions dumps, and an abandoned cigarette factory that had been used to fire on the U.N. troops. At least 200 Somalis were detained, four died and 20 were wounded in the attack and subsequent street clashes...
...civilians ventured out with wagons of market-bound pineapples and freshly baked bread, Washington proclaimed the initial mission a success. But the primary target of the attack, Aidid himself, remained at large. "He's not out of business," said U.S. Major General Thomas Montgomery, deputy commander of the U.N. forces in Mogadishu, "but I bet he's pretty shaky today." To keep pressure on the warlord, a second air assault pounded the area near his private compound for 25 minutes early Sunday...
...Aidid could not let the challenge go unanswered. In a broadcast from his personal radio station in Mogadishu, he charged that the Americans had | engineered Morgan's coup, secretly flying him into Kismayu by helicopter. Next morning, the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, angry mobs jammed the streets of Mogadishu, setting up burning roadblocks of tires and overturned vehicles. Children who had waved happily at passing American troops the day before now hurled chunks of concrete. The next day, the stones turned to bullets and coalition troops fought back...
...bloodshed illustrated just how fragile peace can be. Somalia's warlords, though supposedly disarmed, are still capable of turning bloody at a moment's notice. "Somali people do not care if there is a war or not," said a gray-eyed Aidid loyalist. "If you are a gunman, you can't leave off fighting. That is your...
...Banners paraded past the Marine base at the old American embassy read THIS IS SOMALI SAND NOT AMERICAN SAND. Later in the week, fierce fire fights erupted in several parts of the city between UNITAF (Unified Task Force) troops and Somalis thought to be loyal to General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, leaving five American servicemen and two Nigerians injured and an estimated 10 Somalis dead. The unrest, the most violent involving UNITAF troops since Operation Restore Hope began in December, was triggered by the takeover of the southern port town of Kismayu by gunmen loyal to General Mohammed Said Hersi, a.k.a...