Up to this point, western involvement or UN involvement in Somalia has been discussed in the context of the UN peacekeeping campaign to distribute relief to those who are suffering as a consequence of the Civil War. However, from August of 1993, the Americans move into a slightly different mode with their participation. There is a withdrawal of many of the American troops. who were there for the peacekeeping role, so to speak. The relief role. And you start to see an escalation of a deliberate strategy, to decapitate, the USC. And specifically, to take out a Mohammed Farah Aidid. You see negotiations between the UN and many other of the war lords in the run up to this, trying to come to some broad coalition so that a measure of peace and stability can be returned to Somalia, and hopefully from that point progress back to what in Western terms might be described as normalcy. Farrah Aidid had no vested interest in pursuing these lines, and one of the key things is that he controlled the strongest militia group. All the other militia leaders could agree that they would support the UN line, but he was in a position to disrupt what was going on and effectively keep the country state of near civil war throughout throughout the period that he wished. Now the operation Gothic Serpent was a US designation to replace some of the Marines who are themselves elite troops. But to put in more specialist units contingent of roundabout 5,000 American troops from the ranges and the slightly mysterious Delta Forces. and I'm not saying that to be coy, although, when we look at the film, Black Hawk Down, the Deltas are discussed all the way through. there's a certain distance between the elite troops of the Delta forces and the regular command structure of the US army, or at least that was true 20 years ago. Now the objective was to disrupt and to change the ability of Farrah Aidid. To control Mogadishu, one of the main cities in Somalia. But also u, to see if they can capture and eliminate him. Initial attempts were not successful. that's not a reflection of the failings of the, the forces, but you've got to bear in mind that For the army and the army units to be successful, they have to have a degree of intelligence. And you can't resolve these issues purely with ELIT, electronic intelligence. You have to have men on the ground, and that relied on information being given by the supporting Somalian, people. Now it comes to the point that the initial welcoming that American and other nations troops received, over time deteriorated. And Farrah Aidid is portrayed as being pretty savvy with regards to media broadcasting particularly the use of his radios. a Somalian equivalent if you like of Roosevelt's fireside chats, but a little more directed and a little less unifying in, in broad terms what he's tried to do is demonize the Americans. And to a certain degree in a disrupted environment, where outside media is difficult to obtain, he was quite successful. the Americans also miscalculated in a number of occasions, especially with the use of helicopter gunships. and therefore it was easier for, Farrah Aidid to actually portray the Americans as an invading force, trying to convert the entire country to Christianity. A whole range of things that were going to polarize opinion in the country itself. So we reach a situation where the Americans at least dial back on their objectives, and start saying, well, how can we limit Farrah Aidid's effectiveness. And this is where we come to the events of the 3rd and 4th of October, 1993. As I mentioned very briefly earlier, the objective was on given intelligence to remove two of the most trusted advisers to Aidid. to remove them from his chain of command and also to interrogate them and gain information. And that was intended to be done in a quote surgical strike, a combination of Delta Forces, Rangers, and also armored troops coming in to evacuate those who are being removed from the area. As I said, what was supposed to be a 30 minute incursion lasted well into the night and into the next day. Now, I made the point earlier that these 18 US service men that were killed, 84 who were injured or wounded and literally hundreds, if not thousands, of Somalians who were killed. One of the things you need to bear in mind is the environment that the American forces went into. The American forces in conducting this raid on the third of October were actually going into the most heavily built up area of Mogadishu, with respect with Farrah Aidid's support. And it's something that I, I found quite interesting just to consider how Aidid kept to commitment to some of the Somalians who fought on his side, was effectively there was a trade-off, or at least this is the way that's it's been portrayed. If Somalians in Mogadishu were going to carry arms in the name of Aidid, he managed to give them a drug, I think, a naturally occurring, root on which they would chew, and had the effect similar to cocaine. So one of the things that was pointed out about the timing of the raid around Black Hawk Down was actually because it was in the middle of the day, round about 3 pm to 4 pm. It was about the time that the troops who had been chewing on this drug all day were as hyped up as you could. So not only were you going into a heavily armored area of the enemy, that they were actually up for a fight because they were so drug-addled at the time.
