Somali Civil War Begins
Somalia's civil war began in January 1991 when clan-based rebel movements drove Siad Barre out of Mogadishu after twenty-one years in power, and the state ceased to exist rather than changing hands. Barre had ruled through a socialist single party, had lost a disastrous war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden in 1977–78, and had responded to opposition by arming clans against each other and bombing the northern city of Hargeisa in 1988. The victorious factions immediately fought each other. The United Somali Congress split between Ali Mahdi Muhammad and General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and Mogadishu was fought over street by street through 1991 and 1992. Fighting and drought together produced a famine that killed perhaps 300,000 people, with aid convoys looted by militias. The United Nations authorised an American-led intervention in December 1992 to protect relief operations. It broadened into an attempt to disarm the factions, and after twenty-four Pakistani peacekeepers were killed in June 1993 it became a manhunt for Aidid. On 3 October 1993 a raid to seize his lieutenants ended with two Black Hawk helicopters shot down and a night-long battle in which eighteen Americans and several hundred to a thousand Somalis were killed. American forces withdrew by March 1994 and the UN mission by 1995. The war shaped a decade of Western reluctance to intervene, including in Rwanda. The north declared itself Somaliland in 1991 and has functioned since without recognition. Southern Somalia has had no effective central government for most of the period.
- Category: War
