IN response to the death of US soldiers at the hands of Somalis, Bill Clinton ordered 400 troops into Somalia.
These were crack forces and they were deployed onto the old Mogadishu airport.
Their mission was non-humanitarian and required the apprehension of Muhammad Aidid.
There were Somali youths who partook in the chewing of the leaves of a plant called Kat.
Kat has psychoactive and stimulating effects and it was used by young, trained and armed fighters called Moriyan to make them war-ready.
The Moriyan began targeting US troops among the United Nations (UN) forces and sparing UN troops from other nationalities.
The US and UN did not resolve to leave as was demanded by the Somalis, but decided to step up their efforts to take over Somalia from its people.
The US conducted more than six different raids and there were Somali casualties during all of them.
The US recruited Somali spies to give them information on listed human targets and meeting places.
In the process, the US forces arrested, interrogated and killed innocent Somalis, including those who were co-operating with the UN.
The US intelligence was ineffective in that out of the many Somali people they captured, only one of them was actually affiliated to Aidid and was a weapons purchaser.
The Somali people believed if they let Aidid die at the hands of the foreigners, then any one of them could be killed also.
Thus they stood firmly behind him and made a resolution to kill any US and UN troops, to not only protect Aidid, but themselves and their future.
On one occasion, the US taskforce rangers were informed by a Somali spy that there was going to be a meeting at a certain Abdi Queybdid’s residence.
Abdi was Aidid’s defence minister.
The US command believed Aidid would also join the meeting and prepared to conduct a surprise raid.
Abdi was actually meeting with other Aidid affiliates to discuss means in which they could decrease the warring in the country.
From the beginning of the conflict, US and UN casualties were accurately counted and published, but Somali casualties were not counted, though they were much more in number.
Aidid’s leadership was trying to urge him to let Somalis take a more diplomatic and less militant approach in achieving their goals.
While they were discussing these issues, the US forces suddenly surrounded their residence with fighter helicopters and riddled the place with missiles and bullets, all without provocation or warning.
Seventy people died in that compound, among them Aidid’s leadership and Somalis who simply lived in the building and were not affiliated to Aidid.
This gave credence to Aidid’s formula of taking arms against the whites, because evidently, the US forces were out to indiscriminately destroy the Somalis.
The US was evidently not out to simply capture Aidid as they claimed, but to kill him and all Somalis on his side.
There was mourning in the land and women and children, besides men, began actively training and arming themselves to fight the foreign invaders.
US attacks were conducted swiftly.
The troops capturing the targets were backed up by armed vehicles and fighter helicopters every time.
En route to their destinations, the US fired at suspicious Somalis and would leave dead bodies on the road sides.
They started off attacking at night under the cover of darkness, but as they got used to the raids, the US troops became arrogant and started conducting raids in broad daylight.
The atrocities committed by the US were many and the Somalis loathed the US troops.
One fateful day, the US troops were informed by yet another Somali spy that there were some personal advisors of Aidid in a residence located in a populous marketplace called Bakara.
On October 3 1993, Delta forces planned on attacking the residence with 12 vehicles, six helicopters and a total of 19 snipers among the troops.
They expected to take 30 minutes to accomplish their mission.
On the contrary, the battle that would follow in response to this particular raid would take all night and ultimately bring an end to direct US military intervention in Somalia.
The operation, which was codenamed ‘Irene’, was to take place in a known Aidid stronghold.
The operation began at 3:30pm that day and was supposed to end by 4pm.
By the time the US helicopters landed to apprehend their targets, the Somalis were already shooting at them.
The Somalis captured were Omar and Hassan, among others.
However, the Somalis were not going to give up without a fight.
The Somalis began burning tyres around the hotspot to signal for assistance.
The Somalis had been provoked to fight by the constant raids and they had no choice, but to defend themselves.
The 12 vehicles had shooters who shot down many Somalis on the way to their target area through windows and car roofs.
Men, women and children came to the scene and fired off as many rounds as they could at the US troops.
They fired rockets at the helicopters from the tops of buildings.
The injured and dead bodies of Somalis were lying everywhere, yet the Somali people kept firing at the US Special Forces until the US troops started taking casualties.
Until this moment, the US troops had underestimated the Somalis and had deemed themselves invincible.
The failed operation quickly turned into a rescue mission instead of an attack as 19 US soldiers were killed.
Besides the 19 US soldiers killed that day, there were also 73 US soldiers seriously injured.
It took a multinational UN convoy to rescue the remaining US soldiers trapped in the city.
This humiliating defeat of US troops was broadcast all over the world and exposed footage of white bodies being pulled around in Somalia.
In response, Bill Clinton initially ordered the deployment of thousands of additional troops to Somalia.
However, the US Ambassador to Somalia advised against this, citing that in comparison, the US troops had killed more Somalis with their advanced weaponry and trained shooters, killing an estimated 10 000 Somalis that day alone.
Clinton was also told Somalis hated the US.
Shortly after this, Clinton announced the withdrawal of US troops from Somalia. The US remains remorseless and will not let Somalia succeed because they challenged and humiliated them.
The present situation in Somalia was greatly shaped by the events of October 3 1993 that stopped the US from trying to take over Somalia directly.
To this day the US uses indirect means to invade Somalia.
Peace did not come with US withdrawal from Somalia because the nation was still under warlords and had no organised form of government.
When the UN retreated in 1995, Aidid became President of Somalia, but he died the following year after suffering a gunshot wound from a rival warlord.
Somalia would remain a state of warlords for another 10 years after 1996.