Operation Gothic Serpent was a military operation conducted by United States
special operations forces with the primary mission of capturing faction
leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The operation occurred in Somalia from
August to October 1993 and was supervised by the Joint Special
Operations Command. As part of the operation, the soldiers
were deployed in a mission to arrest two of Aidid's lieutenants. That mission's
result – executed under the command of Gothic Serpent – became known as the
Battle of Mogadishu. Background
In December 1992, U.S. President George H. W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to
join the U.N. in a joint operation known as Operation Restore Hope, with the
primary mission of restoring order in Somalia. The country was wracked by
civil war and a severe famine as it was ruled by a number of faction leaders.
Over the next several months, the situation deteriorated.
In January 1993, Bush's successor, Bill Clinton, took office.
In May 1993, all the parties involved in the civil war agreed to a disarmament
conference proposed by the leading Somali faction leader, Mohamed Farrah
Aidid. The Somali National Alliance had been formed in June 1992. This alliance
consisted of faction leaders across the country, operating under Aidid's
authority, Aidid having declared himself Somalia's president. A great number of
Somali civilians also resented the international forces, leading many,
including women and children, to take up arms and actively resist U.S. forces
during fighting in Mogadishu. On 5 June 1993, one of the deadliest attacks on
U.N. forces in Somalia occurred when 24 Pakistani soldiers were ambushed and
killed in an Aidid-controlled area of Mogadishu.
Any hope of a peaceful resolution of the conflict quickly vanished. The next day,
the U.N.'s Security Council issued Resolution 837, calling for the arrest
and trial of the ambush's perpetrators. U.S. warplanes and U.N. troops began an
attack on Aidid's stronghold. Aidid remained defiant, and the violence
between Somalis and U.N. forces escalated.
Task Force Ranger On 8 August 1993, Aidid's militia
detonated a remote controlled bomb against a U.S. military vehicle, killing
four soldiers. Two weeks later, another bomb injured seven more. In response,
President Clinton approved the proposal to deploy a special task force, composed
of 400 U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos. This unit, named Task Force
Ranger, consisted of 160 elite U.S. troops. They flew to Mogadishu and began
a manhunt for Aidid. On 22 August, the force was deployed to
Somalia under the command of Major General William F. Garrison, JSOC's
commander at the time. The force consisted of:
B Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment
C Squadron, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta
A deployment package of 16 helicopters and personnel from the 160th Special
Operations Aviation Regiment, which included MH-60 Black Hawks and AH/MH-6
Little Birds. Navy SEALs from the Naval Special
Warfare Development Group Air Force Pararescuemen and Combat
Controllers from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
General situation In Mogadishu, the task force occupied an
old hangar and construction trailers under primitive conditions. The force
lacked on-site potable water and was subject to frequent mortar fire.
During September, the force conducted several successful missions to arrest
Aidid's sympathizers and to confiscate arms caches. The aircraft also made
frequent flights over the city to desensitize the public to the presence
of military aircraft and to familiarize themselves with the city's narrow
streets and alleys. On 21 September, the force captured
Aidid's financier, Osman Ali Atto, when a Delta team intercepted a vehicle
convoy transporting him out of the city. At around 02:00 on 25 September, Aidid's
men shot down a Black Hawk with RPG and killed three crew members at New Port
near Mogadishu. Although the helicopter was not part of a Task Force Ranger
mission, the Black Hawk destruction was a huge SNA psychological victory.
Battle of Mogadishu On the afternoon of 3 October 1993,
informed that two leaders of Aidid's clan were at a residence in central
Mogadishu, the task force sent 19 aircraft, 12 vehicles, and 160 men to
arrest them. During the mission, Private Todd Blackburn missed the rope while
fast-roping from an MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. He fell 70 feet to the
street below, badly injuring himself. The two Somali leaders were quickly
arrested. The prisoners and Blackburn were loaded on a convoy of ground
vehicles. However, armed militiamen and civilians, some of them women and
children, converged on the target area from all over the city. Sergeant
Dominick Pilla and a Somali combatant spotted each other and fired at the same
time. Both were killed. The operation's commanders were stunned to hear that a
soldier had been killed, as they expected no casualties during the
operation. During the battle's first hours, the MH-60 Black Hawk, Super Six
One, piloted by Cliff Wolcott, was shot down by a Somali combatant using a
rocket-propelled grenade. Both of the pilots were killed, but the crew
survived the crash landing. Later, another Black Hawk helicopter,
Super Six Four, was shot down by an RPG fired from the ground. No rescue team
was immediately available, and the small surviving crew, including one of the
pilots, Michael Durant, couldn't move. Two Delta snipers — Master Sergeant Gary
Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart provided cover from a
helicopter, and repeatedly volunteered to secure the crash site. On their third
try, they were given permission, both men fully aware that it would probably
cost them their lives. When they arrived, they attempted to
secure the site. Gordon was killed, leaving only Durant and Shughart.
Eventually, after holding off and killing more than 25 Somalis, Shughart
was killed and the mob took Durant hostage after beating him violently.
Meanwhile, the remaining Rangers and Delta operators fought their way to the
first crash site, where they found the crew. They soon found themselves
surrounded by Somali Habr Gidr militia. The Somali commander, Colonel Sharif
Hassan Giumale, decided to kill the U.S. troops with mortar fire, and Somali
militia prepared to bombard the besieged Americans with 60mm mortars. However,
Colonel Giumale called off the mortar strike after information of possible
civilian hostages arose. Repeated attempts by the Somalis to overrun U.S.
positions were beaten back with heavy small arms fire accompanied by strafing
and rocket fire from helicopters. A rescue convoy was organized, made up of
the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division and Malaysian and Pakistani forces. In
heavy combat with the Somalis, the rescue convoy broke through the
encirclement and rescued the besieged forces.
The battle turned out to be the most intensive close combat that U.S. troops
had engaged in since the Vietnam War. In the end, two MH-60 Black Hawks were shot
down, another was seriously damaged, and 18 U.S. troops and a Malaysian soldier
on the rescue convoy were killed, and 85 were wounded. Estimates of Somali
fatalities are around 1,000 militiamen killed during the battle, with over
3,000 wounded. The Delta snipers, Gary Gordon and Randall Shughart, were
posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their sacrifice. The mission's
objective of capturing Aidid's associates was accomplished.
6 October mortar attack Two days after the battle's end, Somali
militiamen launched a mortar strike on a U.S. compound that killed Delta operator
Sergeant First Class Matt Rierson. U.S. withdrawal
Following the battle, President Clinton ordered that additional troops be added
to protect U.S. soldiers and aid in withdrawal. All military actions were
ceased on 6 October, except in cases of self-defense. Clinton called for a full
withdrawal by 31 March 1994. Conforming to this request, most troops were out of
the country by 25 March 1994. A few hundred U.S. Marines remained offshore,
but were completely removed from the area by March 1995. The U.N. withdrew as
well. Legacy
U.S. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned his post late in 1993. He was
specifically blamed for denying the U.S. Army permission to have its own armor
units in place in Somalia, units which might have been able to break through to
the trapped soldiers earlier in the battle. U.S. political leaders thought
the presence of tanks would spoil the peacekeeping image of the mission.
Osama bin Laden, who was living in Sudan at the time, cited this operation, in
particular U.S. withdrawal, as an example of American weakness and
vulnerability to an attack. In popular culture
The battle is portrayed in the book Black Hawk Down, the film of the same
name, the NovaLogic video game Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, the board
wargame Lock ‘n Load: A Day of Heroes, in Howard E. Wasdin's autobiography,
SEAL Team Six, and the Roblox game Blackhawk Rescue Mission 1.
References Bibliography
External links