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- Insurgents shot down two American Black Hawk helicopters with rocket-propelled grenades. When about 90 U.S. Rangers and Delta Force operators rushed to the rescue, they were caught in an intense exchange of gunfire and trapped overnight.
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The Legacy of Black Hawk Down Twenty-five years after the battle chronicled in the best-selling book, the author argues that we’ve learned the wrong lessons about fighting terrorism
Oct 3, 2013 · October 3, 2013 by John L. Hirsch. This week marks the 20th anniversary of Black Hawk Down, an American military operation on October 3-4, 1993 in which 18 American soldiers and over 500 Somalis were killed, and 78 Americans and thousands of Somalis wounded, in an attempt to capture top lieutenants of warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed. Black Hawk ...
- Somalia Was in The Midst of A Bloody Civil War at The Start of The 1990s
- It Was Part of Operation Gothic Serpent
- The Aim Was to Seize 2 High-Profile Military Leaders
- Us Black Hawk Helicopters Were Shot Down in The Attempt
- Fighting occurred on The Streets of Mogadishu
- Several Thousands Somalis Were Killed in The Battle
- The Mission Was Technically A Success
- The Crew Were Posthumously Awarded The Medal of Honour
- The Incident Was Immortalised in A Book and Film
Somalia began to experience political unrest in the late 1980s as people began to resist the military junta that had been controlling the country. In 1991, the government was overthrown, leaving a power vacuum. Law and order collapsed and the UN (both military and peacekeeping forces) arrived in 1992. Many of those vying for power saw the arrival o...
In 1992, President George H. W. Bushdecided to involve the US military with UN peacekeeping forces in an attempt to restore order in Somalia. His successor, President Clinton, took over in 1993. Many Somalis disliked foreign intervention (including active resistance on the ground) and faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid who later declared himself p...
The American military task force Ranger was dispatched to capture 2 of Aidid’s leading generals, Omar Salad Elmim and Mohamed Hassan Awale. The plan was to have troops stationed on the ground in Mogadishu, securing it from the ground, whilst four rangers would fast-rope down from helicopters to secure the building they were in.
The ground convoys ran into road blocks and protests from the citizens of Mogadishu, setting the mission off to an inauspicious start. Around 16:20, Super 61,became the first of 2 Black Hawk helicopters to be shot down that day by an RPG-7: both pilots and two other crew members were killed. A combat search and rescue team was immediately sent to h...
Aidid’s militia reacted with force to the US’s attempts to seize two of their group. They overran the crash site after a heavy fire from both sides and most of the American personnel were killed, excluding Michael Durant, who was captured and taken as a prisoner by Aided. Fighting continued at both crash sites and across wider Mogadishu until the e...
It’s thought several thousands Somalis were killed during the operation although the precise numbers are unclear: the area in which the majority of the fighting took place was densely populated and so casualties included large numbers of civilians as well as militia. 19 US soldiers were killed in action, with a further 73 wounded.
Although the Americans did manage to capture Omar Salad Elmim and Mohamed Hassan Awale, it’s seen as something of a pyrrhic victory due to the excessive loss of life and disastrous shooting down of two military helicopters. The US Secretary of Defense, Leslie Aspin, stepped down in February 1994, shouldering much of the blame for events in Mogadish...
Delta snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honour for their actions in holding off Somali forces and defending the crash site. They were the first American soldiers to receive it since the Vietnam War.
Journalist Mark Bowden published his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War in 1999, following years of painstaking research, including combing US Army records, interviewing those on both sides of the event and reviewing all available material. Much of the book’s material was serialised in Bowden’s paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, before it w...
- Sarah Roller
Feb 6, 2018 · Local. From Pearl Harbor to “Black Hawk Down,” Army’s history awaits its museum. By Michael E. Ruane. February 6, 2018 at 6:53 p.m. EST. Life-size figures in military uniforms will be...
Oct 10, 2013 · The Black Hawk Down incident should provide a cautionary tale about military intervention and its often destructive consequences.
- Jeremy Kuzmarov
May 13, 2019 · After "Black Hawk Down" came out as a book, which was before the film, it was a #1 best seller on The New York Times list, it was a National Book Award finalist, it got a lot of attention, and it ...
Jun 11, 2023 · Published Jun 11, 2023. Now regarded as one of the finest modern war movies ever, how accurate is Black Hawk Down? Sony Pictures Releasing. Hailed as one of the best modern war movies ever made,...
