Word: mogadishu
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Bodies littered the streets of Mogadishu, and artillery blasts rattled its shuttered buildings. Automatic gunfire was almost continuous around the presidential palace. Crowded hospitals in the capital were without water or food. Foreign embassy staffs took cover inside their locked compounds. Ringed by tanks and the remnants of his army, Somalia's octogenarian President, Mohammed Siad Barre, held out in an underground bunker at a military air base south of the city...
...things. In May 1988 the Somali National Movement, formed by the northern Isaq clan, rose in rebellion and seized several towns. The army put down the revolt with vicious bombing and shelling that killed as many as 50,000 civilians and insurgents. Said a relief worker in Mogadishu last week: "This regime has cold-bloodedly murdered or starved to death nearly 10% of the population, driven another 25% into exile and holds a multitude in jail...
...success was matched by the Ogadeni clan, which launched the Somali Patriotic Movement and gradually took over the country's southern region. Those rebels were joined six months ago by the United Somali Congress, organized by the Hawiye clan, which predominates in the center of the country and in Mogadishu. The Hawiyes had been outraged in July 1989 when government troops opened fire on street demonstrations in the capital and killed 450 protesters. Last week the Hawiyes were doing much of the shooting in Mogadishu, and at least 500 people were dead...
Somalia's three rebel fronts dismissed Siad Barre's call for a cease-fire and negotiations last week, and the United Somali Congress marched reinforcements into Mogadishu for what it called the "final offensive." In a joint statement issued in London, the three groups announced their agreement to form a "transitional government that will pave the way for the restoration of democratic institutions...
...careful planning and expertly trained troops. An Israeli group in 1976 rescued 105 hostages from an Air France flight at Entebbe, Uganda. Four died -- three hostages and one commando. In 1977 West German forces staged the most successful raid, rescuing 86 passengers and crew from a Lufthansa jet in Mogadishu, Somalia. No commandos or hostages were killed...