Word: mogadishu
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...MOGADISHU, NO STRANGER TO THE POP-POP OF ISOlated rifle fire, suddenly shook from the thunderous roar of a full-scale military assault. For 20 seemingly endless minutes, U.S. forces directed a massive array of firepower from AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, M1A1 Abrams tanks and amphibious assault vehicles, all aimed at two arsenals controlled by warlord General Mohammed Farrah Aidid in the Somali capital's northwest. The offensive was ostensibly in retaliation for sniper fire at U.S. troops, but the blazing-gun approach carried a clear warning to Somalia's increasingly bold gunmen that they continue to lurk...
Hostility in Somalia is more than an emotion; it is virtually a way of life. Some details began to surface last week about one of the civil war's worst atrocities, which allegedly began shortly before U.S. Marines landed at Mogadishu. In the port city of Kismayu, 250 miles southwest of the capital, up to 200 leading members of the Harti clan, including religious leaders, businessmen and doctors, were reportedly dragged from their homes and shot during several nights of terror. The killing spree was said to have been ordered by Kismayu's de facto boss, the warlord Colonel Omar...
...attempt by the warlords to dismantle Mogadishu's green line was intended to show the world that they can resolve their differences without outside intervention. Western observers believe a gradual reconciliation among Somalia's warring clans would be an essential prelude to the restoration of some form of responsible central authority. The commanders of the U.S.-led military force insist that their mission is limited to ensuring the delivery of food to hundreds of thousands of starving Somalis and that political reconciliation would be a serendipitous by-product. But the Kismayu reports and the green line thuggery point...
...they have appeared together at a public gathering. Since the Marines landed, however, they have had several private meetings. Both grandly declared that the day of rule by rifle was over. "I believe only in democracy," said Ali Mahdi in an interview with TIME at his seaside villa in Mogadishu. "Every Somali has the right to be President. If left to myself, I would like to be a businessman once again. But if the Somali people wish me to continue, I will do my best to serve them...
...rhetoric is suspect, however, since the warlords' rivalries simmer on. Ali Mahdi blames continuing violence along the green line on looters from Aidid's sector. He also charges Aidid with having started the civil war that has killed tens of thousands and left Mogadishu in ruins. Because Aidid is a military officer, Ali Mahdi argues, he should be disqualified as a possible future leader of the country. "We do not want another general in charge of Somalia," he says, referring to Mohammed Siad Barre, whose corrupt, quasi- Marxist regime was overthrown in January 1991 after Ali Mahdi, Aidid and others...