“In October [3-4] 1993 al Qaeda-affiliated Afghan Arabs launched the Black Hawk helicopter attacks in Mogadishu [Somalia] in which eighteen US soldiers were killed, seventy-eight wounded and one captured and dragged through the streets. The US withdrew nearly all their troops from the region in March 1994 in a move bin Laden heralded as a […]
10/3/1993
On October 3, 1993, “three days after [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin] Powell retired from the military and left office, Army Rangers and Delta Force troops trying to nab [Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah] Aidid[‘s] lieutenants were trapped in downtown Mogadishu [Somalia] and killed in a furious firefight. Eighteen were killed, and in […]
10/3/1993
Secretary of Defense Les Aspin was “blamed widely for the infamous ‘Black Hawk Down’ misadventure in Somalia in October [3-4] 1993, when a failed mission to kidnap a Somali warlord [Mohamed Farrah Aideed] resulted in the deaths of seventeen American Special Forces soldiers. Because Secretary Aspin had refused the military’s request to deploy tanks to […]
10/3/1993
“An October 4, 2001, report by the British government flatly states, ‘On 3 and 4 October 1993, operatives of al Qaeda participated in the attack on U.S. military personnel serving in Somalia.’ ” – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 53 […]
10/3/1993
“Bin Laden told CNN in [March] 1997 that one of his proudest achievements while he was based in Sudan was the role of his Afghan Arabs in the [October 3-4] 1993 killings of more than a dozen American soldiers stationed in Somalia.” – Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., Page 84 […]
10/3/1993
On October 3-4, 1993, “Eighteen US troops are killed in an urban attack in Mogadishu, Somalia. American law enforcement, intelligence and national security officials are divided as to whether, as a federal indictment charges, bin Laden and his adherents helped train and arm the men who killed the US troops.” – “Hunting Bin Laden; Who […]
10/3/1993
“The conflict [in Somalia between the U.S. and warlord Mohamed Aideed] came to a head on October 3 [1993]. Under pressure from the [Clinton] administration to wrap things up, U.S. Special Forces launched an operation into the center of Mogadishu aimed at snatching two of Aideed’s top lieutenants. In the ensuing battle, which spanned 18 […]
10/3/1993
“…in October [3-4] 1993, came the episode that inspired the movie Black Hawk Down. Relying on Yemenite ‘Afghan Arabs’ who had fought with him against the Soviets, and financing the operation with businesses he owned in Yemen, bin Laden backed the ambush that killed eighteen U.S. Army Rangers who were trying to capture two aides […]
10/3/1993
“The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)…had mastered the art and science of surprise night-time operations and low-profile, covert operations. In Mogadishu [Somalia], however, they acted in broad daylight with dozens of helicopters clattering into the city. The operations were repetitive and the Somalis learned by watching them. On October 3, 1993, in the famous Black […]
9/25/1993
“Sensing that the U.S. presence [in Somalia] could thwart [Islamic fundamentalist warlord Mohamed Farrah] Adid’s efforts to install an Islamic ‘republic’ in the capital [Mogadishu] and worried that the United States might destabilize the pro-al Qaeda government in Sudan, bin Laden dispatched five groups of al Qaeda operatives, some of them trained by [al Qaeda […]