IN LATE 1992 televised coverage of the famine in Somalia subjected viewers in the United States and the West as a whole to a profusion of images of starving and dying children. Pictured against scenes of destitution and misery, exasperated Western relief workers pleaded with the viewers to provide massive relief for the suffering. In fact, the famine was more an intentional human-made crisis than the result of a natural disaster—the drought. The famine had not only caused massive casualties among the civilian population but had also brought the social order in Somalia to a total collapse.
The catastrophe was caused by tribal wars for independence and self-determination and exacerbated by a power struggle between conflicting groups. In the power struggle among key leaders of the main Somalian factions, famine was their weapon of choice for determining the character of the civilian population in their fiefdoms. These leaders intentionally denied food to the segments of population they wanted destroyed and fed only those groups whose allegiance they sought. This convoluted and fratricidal warfare took place within the context of a radical Islamist surge throughout the whole region
The events unfolding in the Horn of Africa in the early 1990s, primarily the confrontation with and ultimate eviction of the U.S.-led U.N. military forces in Somalia, could have foreshadowed the potential power of Islamist subversion and terrorism as sponsored by Iran and Sudan. These events showed an Islamist camp overcoming profound conflicts, such as those between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and between Iran and Iraq, in order to mobilize all available resources in confronting the United States over an area of great geostrategic importance—the Horn of Africa and southern access to the Red Sea. Toward this end the Islamists, the sponsoring states, and their underlings established a strategic command-and-control system, trained and moved thousands of fighters between South Asia and Africa, clandestinely moved large sums of money for the support of covert operations, and ultimately successfully engaged the mighty United States. The Islamists consider Somalia a turning point, but for the West it sets a precedent that should not be ignored.
Osama bin Laden considers the Islamists’ confrontation with the U.S.-U.N. forces in Somalia a turning point not only in the rise of the Islamist militant system but also in his own personal road to the top. It was during the preparations for the Islamist struggle in Somalia that bin Laden participated in high-level leadership activities. His own contribution to the Islamist effort, although in a supporting role, was significant.
THE STRATEGICALLY CRUCIAL Horn of Africa—Ethiopia (including now independent Eritrea), Somalia, and Djibouti—has been the playground of superpowers and regional powers for centuries. Located at the eastern tip of Africa, just southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa has a uniquely important geostrategic position. Its long coastline overlooks the southern stretch of the Red Sea in Eritrea and the approaches to and from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean from Somalia. From bases on the Somalian coastline, it is possible to stop the sea traffic between Europe (and the United States) and East Asia by blocking the approaches to the Red Sea, which leads to the Suez Canal in the north. The sources of the Blue Nile, Egypt’s lifeline, are in the mountains of Ethiopia. Dominance over the Horn of Africa yields great influence not only over world commerce and maritime transportation but also over stability in Egypt and so the Middle East. As a rule, strategic power struggles over the area—whether fought in the name of colonial aspirations or Cold War ideologies—ended up exploiting the sharp divide between the Christians of inland Ethiopia, whose church is one of the oldest still active, and the Muslims of the coastal areas. The traditional ethnic and religious rivalries and enmities that had endured for centuries exploded with renewed intensity in the early 1990s. Under Hassan al-Turabi’s guidance, the Islamist leadership capitalized on this indigenous upsurge in order to further the Islamists’ strategic interests—to humiliate the United States and evict it from the region.
The overthrow of President Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Dergue regime in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in late May 1991 was an outcome of the rebels’ advance and U.S. mediation but was even more a manifestation of profound dynamics overtaking the Horn of Africa that are still the primary cause of instability and chaos in that region. Analysis of regional developments in the early 1990s reveals that these events preceded an important process rapidly developing all over sub-Saharan Africa—the collapse of the state system and the redefinition of boundaries based on ethnic and tribal quests for self-identity. Local populations throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa still aspire to this.
Although the lengthy revolutionary struggles throughout the Horn of Africa since the 1970s had been fought against ruthless dictatorial regimes in both Addis Ababa and Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, the ideological motivations of the groups challenging these regimes were largely ethnocentric. The manpower of any one of these organizations or fronts was dominated by a specific nationality, and each nationality’s individual goals determined its priorities. National/ethnic goals were the real driving force behind these movements. All these revolutionary forces had endured and prevailed after decades of armed struggle, maintaining the trust and support of the population through times of unprecedented hardship, including several cycles of lethal famine. Such endurance reveals the genuine popular devotion to the leadership of these revolutionary movements and the true ideologies they stood for in the early 1990s. This grassroots alignment of the people throughout the region, including Somalia, would prove a critical factor in the intensification of the crisis and the subsequent consolidation of the anti-United States coalition.
The situation in the Horn of Africa was further complicated by the fact that although virtually all of these liberation movements were ethnocentric separatist movements, they also espoused to some extent a Marxist revolutionary ideology. This ideology, a legacy from well-wishing Western European intellectuals of the 1960s rather than an expression of popular sentiment, had resulted from a pragmatic desire to placate Cuba, initially the main supporter of all of these movements, and later pro-Soviet radical Arab regimes, such as Libya and Algeria, which also provided weapons, training, and funds. But the Westernized political leaders of these movements, especially those who ran the public awareness campaigns in Western Europe for more than a decade, were prisoners of their own policies, continuing to hold to their progressive “Westernized” ideologies even though their followers were ethnocentric and traditionalist. This contradiction between genuine popular sentiment for the furthering of ethnocentric sentiments and the all-embracing revolutionary ideologies of the political leadership was beginning to emerge as a point of contention just as the victorious rebels were trying to establish their governments. At the time of crisis, when all-out popular support was crucial, leaders had to take into consideration the prevalence of the ethnocentric sentiments in reaching alliances and taking sides.
Another external factor that would become a catalyst for explosion was the Arabs’ declared objective of making the Red Sea into an Arab lake. Toward that end, Somalia was recognized as part of the Arab League and subsidized by Saudi Arabia. Similarly the Arabs encouraged and supported the Muslim Eritreans’ separation from largely Christian Ethiopia. With militant pan-Arab sentiments on the rise throughout the Middle East, the collapse of the Dergue regime in Ethiopia meant that an Arab lake might become a political reality. The unbridgeable gap between Islam and Christianity served as a focus for Islamic Eritrea’s struggle for self-determination and independence from Addis Ababa. In Somalia the well-financed Somali Islamic Unity Party had already launched a propaganda campaign to unify all Muslim peoples along the littoral of the Horn of Africa—namely, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. Several conservative Arab regimes led by Saudi Arabia were pouring money into this and similar Muslim unity programs.
Meanwhile, because of the position it took in mediating the Ethiopian crisis, the United States emerged as the guardian of the established order in the post-Cold War world and the guarantor of existing borders. The United States had been the driving force behind the London conference of early 1991 that brought together Dergue and various Ethiopian and Eritrean liberation organizations. The agreement facilitated the resignation and exile of President Mengistu in May 1991 and the relatively orderly entry of a coalition of Ethiopian rebel organizations led by Meles Zenawi to Addis Ababa. This agreement also ensured the unity and territorial integrity of Ethiopia despite the aspirations of several separatist movements, most of which were Muslim dominated. (Ultimately the United States would stand aside when Eritrea unilaterally declared its independence in May 1993.) As a result, Islamist separatist and revolutionary leaders were convinced that Africa was on a collision course with the United States, especially in the wake of the Gulf Crisis. Before long the United States found itself fighting radical Islam in the Horn of Africa.
SINCE 1990 the main revolutionary forces in Somalia, like all such regional forces, had been ethnically based. Most important were the United Somali Congress (USC), which derived from the Hawiye clan in central Somalia, and the Somali National Movement (SNM), derived from the Isaaq clan in Somaliland, the former British colony that is the northern arm of Somalia along the Gulf of Aden. (Somalia looks like an inverted L, with one arm consisting of the former British colony and the other, along the Indian Ocean coast, consisting of the former Italian colony.) Smaller groups included the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM), which originated with the Ogadeni and to a lesser degree the Kismayu (of Kenya) clans; the Somali Salvation Liberation Front (SSLF), which started with the Majer-teen clan, traditionally oppressed by the Hawiye, and evolved into the movement of all oppressed miniclans inside central Somalia; the Somali Democratic Alliance (SDA), originating with the Gedabursi clan; and the Somali Democratic Movement (SDM), which started with the Rahanwein clan. The Gedabursi and Rahanwein clans are both located in the north.
These movements were divided into two distinct groups: the northern, Somaliland, movements—the SNM and its challengers—and the central, Somalia, movements—the USC and its challengers. The natural habitation zones of the two groups roughly overlapped the ex-British and ex-Italian colonies that had been united by the British in 1960 to form independent Somalia. In essence the warfare had always been a rebellion against a centralized Somalian identity and a struggle for self-determination by the main clans.
By late 1992 the primary fighting in the Mogadishu area and the central coastal area was between extended families and subclans that rallied behind key leaders based on personal loyalties. The main protagonists were General Muhammad Farrah Aidid, the USC chairman, who was supported by his own Habar Gidir subclan and a loose alliance of smaller extended families (together called the Somali National Alliance, or SNA), and Ali Mahdi Muhammad, the so-called interim president of Somalia, and his Abgal subclan and a loose alliance of smaller extended families and subclans. Muhammad rose to power in December 1990 as one of the leaders of the USC, but by early 1991 a major rift erupted between the Muhammad-led and the Aidid-led factions of the USC. Formally the crisis was over Aidid’s effort to increase cooperation with the SNM, thereby retaining the unity of Somalia at the expense of the USC’s monopoly of power in Mogadishu. By September 1991 the crisis had evolved into a bitter struggle for power between the Muhammad-led and the Aidid-led clans, resulting in the breakup of the USC. Aidid’s contacts with the SNM would prove crucial in the fighting of 1993, when bin Laden would organize part of the support system for the anti-American forces in Somaliland.
By 1992 the most notorious and cruel fighters for Aidid were the members of the Habar Gidir subclan of the Hawiye clan from Galcaio, about 370 miles north of Mogadishu. Members of a subclan historically known for its banditry, the Habar Gidir forces were lured into Mogadishu by promises of plunder and rape. Meanwhile, because of the clannish character of the revolt against General Muhammad Siyad Barre (who had ruled for twenty-one years) in summer and fall 1991, the clans and subclans who had provided most of the city’s services, including police, escaped, fearing the advancing Hawiye. This population movement deprived the Mogadishu area of any semblance of resistance or civility.
Aidid blamed the United Nations and the West for supporting Muhammad, insisting that all the humanitarian aid was brought into Somalia in order to consolidate Muhammad’s power and that his own fierce struggle for the food was a liberation struggle. Muhammad stated that only he had the right to distribute the food and humanitarian aid, to determine who was truly needy and where the aid was needed first. When the United Nations refused Muhammad’s demand to dominate the distribution of humanitarian aid, his forces shelled the Mogadishu harbor and attacked distribution facilities. Muhammad attributed the attacks to frustrated “uncontrolled elements” in his force, but in principle he was determined to prevent others from eating if he could not control the food.
Besieged by images of starving children and haunted by the media, Washington decided in November 1992 to deploy a large military force to Somalia on a humanitarian mission—to ensure, by force if necessary, the delivery of food to the starving innocent. But this deployment, noble intentions notwithstanding, would disrupt the intricate and vicious struggles for power and riches in Somalia. The warlords would not accept this development for long.
Muhammad claimed that the anticipated deployment of U.S. forces meant recognition of his right to power. In response, on November 2, 1992, Aidid threatened any foreign deployment with “unprecedented bloodshed,” a threat he would live up to in fall 1993, when he provided the cover and troops for the Islamist clashes with the U.S.-U.N. forces. The USC issued a more moderate communiqué on November 27, 1992, announcing that Aidid “considers the deployment of armed troops in Somalia damaging for our sovereignty and for our territorial integrity.” But on December 1, facing the inevitable, each of the two warlords welcomed the deployment of U.S. forces on condition that the United Nations and United States recognized him as the legitimate political power in the country. Aidid and Muhammad both considered the role of the U.S. forces to be to “help the transitional government [theirs, of course] to deliver food supplies.” Both leaders also insisted that the U.S. forces should fight the “gunmen preventing food from reaching the starving” but actually expected the U.S. forces to fight their respective rivals.
Muhammad Farrah Aidid took more credible steps to effect and capitalize on the distribution of aid. In early November he organized and chaired a major meeting of the “elders and wise men” and other pillars of the traditional society to gain their support in the SNA, which meant the loyalty of the various miniforces. With that accomplished, Aidid’s forces immediately stormed and by November 10 successfully seized control of about fifteen main road junctions and the local roadblocks from “freelancer” bands.
On November 30 and December 1, Aidid visited Kismayu, a key seaport, airport, and road juncture in the south, and established an alliance with the Somali Liberation Army, which had bases in Kenya. He also nominated Ahmed Omar Jays, the chairman of the SPM (whose forces now occupied the Kismayu airport and surrounding area), to be deputy chairman of the SNA, covering the USC’s flanks into the Ogaden desert. Aidid reached an agreement with Muhammad Nur Aliow, the leader of the SDM in the north, whose forces could block any advance from Somaliland. In this summit Aidid described to the commanders “their obligations in areas under their control and told them to be wary of elements bent on harming the unity of the Somalian people.” On the other side, Ali Mahdi Muhammad met with representatives of Ethiopia and Eritrea to establish a cooperative effort against Aidid’s forces.
While civil war raged, the Islamists increased their presence in Somalia through numerous charitable organizations formally affiliated with Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States. As foreign intervention became imminent, the Islamists launched a campaign against foreign aid. For example, the Islamic World Association and the World Muslim Relief Organization declared that “only Muslim organizations have been doing [true] humane work in Somalia.” One of the leaders of an Islamist charity organization accused the West of exploiting the humanitarian aid in order to implement “a suspicious plan aimed at partitioning Somalia to European countries and of implementing the partition plan by fanning the flames of dissension among Somali factions fighting for government control.” The position of these Islamic organizations was important in view of the financial and political power behind them. The Islamic World Association and the World Muslim Relief Organization were part of the wide network of organizations answering to the Saudi fundamentalist Islamic proselytization movement, comprising both Riyadh-supported and underground Islamist elements. This network of organizations included several fronts organized by Osama bin Laden that answered to Turabi and furthered the interests of militant Islamism.
By the early 1990s a well-established financial network existed in Somalia. The Saudi government and the very rich supporters of the Saudi fundamentalist Islamic proselytization movement had financed Siyad Barre and his regime after he broke off relations with the Soviet Union in 1978 until his downfall in mid-1991. The money was transferred and handled by a Somalian middleman named Mohammad Sheikh Osman. In the summer of 1991, however, Osman suddenly changed sides and became a member of Aidid’s USC central committee. He brought with him the continued financial and political support of the Islamists. This switch would significantly expedite bin Laden’s manipulation and ultimate takeover of the Islamist financial system in Somalia. Bin Laden would soon capitalize on Osman’s network as the Somali end of his own financial network for the funding and sustaining of the anti-U.S. operations in Somalia.
THE ESCALATION AND DETERIORATION of the situation in Somalia was not accidental but an essential component in the Iranian-Sudanese struggle to consolidate and expand the Islamist stronghold in eastern Africa.
While Somalians were starving, additional National Islamic Front training camps for fighters from Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, and Uganda were opened and expanded in Sudan under the direction of Dr. Ali al-Haj, one of Turabi’s closest friends and confidants. Once again Osama bin Laden’s managerial, logistical, and construction skills transformed Turabi’s desires into working training camps. In fall 1992 Turabi ordered the escalation of the campaign to destabilize the whole of East Africa. Soon afterward additional cadres and expert terrorists were sent from Sudan to their home countries in East Africa. The pace of the deployment of these terrorists accelerated after November 1992, once the U.S. intervention was announced.
The Somalian terrorists were provided with equipment and weapons for the militias they would train and lead. Some of these militias operated within the ranks of the main Somalian parties, while others were completely independent, answering only to Khartoum. Most terrorists traveled via Eritrea, but a few of the most important operatives were clandestinely landed from the sea in southern Somalia and Kenya. Tehran, which controlled and sponsored these Somalian terrorists via Sudan, planned on using them against the U.S. forces the same way the HizbAllah had been used by Syria and Iran against the U.S. peacekeepers in Beirut in the early 1980s.
The expansion of East African terrorist activities in Sudan coincided with a marked escalation in Islamist violence and terrorism in Egypt. In late November, Cairo blamed Iran for supporting the rise of Islamist violence that was threatening the stability of the country. Most terrorists arrived from base camps in Sudan. Cairo emphasized that the escalation of subversion in Egypt was a part of Tehran’s drive to become a regional superpower and warned of “Iran’s ability to break Arab and Islamic ranks” as well as “the dangers that Iran posed to pan-Arab security and the strategic and vital interests of the Arab nation.” These attacks on Egypt were only a component of Tehran’s surge to regional hegemony, made possible by its growing hold over Sudan.
In mid-November 1992 Iran intensified its building of major facilities in Port Sudan, including radio stations and command, control, and communications facilities—indications of long-term commitments. The fast and relatively efficient completion of these installations was a result of bin Laden’s takeover of the construction projects. By now Tehran and Khartoum had signed a twenty-five-year lease on Port Sudan. Iran also built military facilities in Suakin in eastern Sudan. These bases constituted Iran’s main forward military bases for regional operations, and Iranian forces also enjoyed virtually unrestricted access to all of Sudan’s airports and seaports, primarily Jubayat and Trinkitat. These ports had already become Tehran’s naval base in the Red Sea in December 1991.
By late 1992 the United States was committing military forces into an area that was in the midst of a vicious and escalating tribal and religious power struggle. The protagonists consolidated their power on the bodies of their people. The famine was their most effective instrument for influencing the tribal and ethnic character of the population they controlled, a weapon of choice in physically eliminating the tribes, clans, and subclans they opposed.
The Somalian chaos thrived and still thrives in the context of the Islamist militant surge for hegemony in the strategically crucial areas of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. The strongest forces in the region—Iran and Sudan—had long been fierce enemies of the United States and considered the mere presence of the United States a grave threat to their paramount strategic aspirations. In addition all the local parties would have liked and therefore did their utmost to manipulate the American forces into doing their killing for them while legitimizing their own hold on power. Good intentions notwithstanding, the United States found itself mired in a vicious quagmire in the Horn of Africa.
U.S. MARINES LANDED on the beaches of Somalia in early December 1992 under the glare of cameras—an army of American electronic media representatives was awaiting them. For the first days the mission of the marines in Somalia went peacefully and without any major clash with local forces. But the marines had not yet made contact with the country’s Islamist forces.
The initial impression of relative tranquility was deceiving. For more than a year Iran and Sudan had been engaged in a fierce campaign to consolidate their control over the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Somalia, a Muslim country stretching along the all-important littoral of the Horn of Africa, attracted the attention of Khartoum and Tehran. The chaos in Somalia, fractured along tribal lines and immersed in a fierce struggle for self-determination and power, made segments of the population and their power-hungry leaders amenable to close cooperation with and susceptible to manipulation and exploitation by Turabi’s people in Khartoum. Islamism was spreading in the ranks of the various tribal militia in Somalia, and by fall 1992 the armed Islamist movements in Somalia were growing fast.
By now Khartoum and Tehran had in place a well-organized leadership and high command system ready to spring into action. Turabi was personally close to some of the local Islamist leaders and supervised many regional activities. The IRGC deputy commander, General Rahim Safavi, and Turabi’s deputy, Ali Uthman Taha, were directly in charge of the operations in Somalia itself.
After the summer of 1992 most experienced terrorist trainees were sent to the Iranian-controlled camps in Sudan. George Logokwa, the Sudanese labor minister who defected in Egypt in August 1992, described the situation in these camps at the time of his defection: “They receive tough training in all types of combat, violence, and assassinations—to be sent, from time to time, to some neighboring countries to explore the situation, carry out limited and swift operations, and await the major plan devised by the [National Islamic] Front to send its members to the countries chosen as targets for intensive activity.” In the camps Khartoum intensified the training of armed units, each manned by fighters from a specific East African state and each prepared to engage conventional military forces.
As with all Islamist terrorist and subversive forces, in order for the center—Khartoum and Tehran—to implement its grand designs, it needed influence over the local strongmen. The key regional allies that Khartoum and Tehran were able to cultivate demonstrated the extent of Turabi’s influence.
Turabi was very close to Abdul-Rahman Ahmad Ahmad Ali Tour, the leader of Somaliland, who proclaimed the Sharia the law of the land and consequently enjoyed Sudanese-Iranian assistance. In central Somalia, the most active and loyal adherent to Turabi was General Muhammad Abshir, the former chief of police in Mogadishu, who determined the pro-Sudanese stand of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), now run by Abdul-lahhi Yussuf. “Volunteers” from Sudan, Egypt, and Pakistan-Afghanistan joined the SSDF forces in 1992. In addition, General Aidid was already receiving material and logistical aid from Turabi’s Sudan as part of a fledgling military cooperation between Sudan and Aidid. In mid-1992 a company from Colonel Suleiman Muhammad Suleiman’s training facilities in central Sudan deployed to Mogadishu and subsequently participated in the fighting against Ali Mahdi Muhammad’s forces. The main purpose of this deployment was to test the Sudanese ability to deploy, maintain, and control forces in Somalia.
In Ethiopia the combination of Iranian money and Sudanese pressure and subversion transformed the Oromo Liberation Front, a nationalist liberation front consisting of the largest nationality of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, into the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromo. This transformation had a direct impact on the situation in Somalia—in 1993 some of the supply lines that bin Laden organized would run through the Oromo-controlled areas. In Djibouti, Turabi’s strongest supporter was the uncle of Ismail Omar Guelle, the nation’s chief of security. Weapons and funds would be channeled via Djibouti.
The recruiting and running of these networks of influence required that a lot of money quietly change hands. Although Turabi himself and a few key Sudanese aides built the contacts and established loyalties, it was up to Osama bin Laden to get the money safely to its destination. In mid-1992, when Khartoum and Tehran began markedly expanding and accelerating their operations in East Africa, the support networks they had in place could not handle the new volume of activities. But bin Laden and his team were able to quickly establish the required financial networks, using existing businesses and bank accounts throughout Europe and East Africa. At first he used his own array of financial interests in the region. When these were not sufficient to cope with the volume and diversity of the clandestine flow of funds, he tapped into comparable assets of like-minded Saudi and Gulf Arab businessmen he had known for a long time and trusted. In some cases, bin Laden and his friends even established front companies and bogus bank accounts in East Africa to expedite the clandestine flow of funds.
Meanwhile some of the local terrorist and irregular forces were also coming under the influence of Sudan and Iran. Since early 1992 Turabi had overseen the establishment of numerous jihad organizations of highly trusted Islamists from Eritrea and Somalia. Turabi created the Somali Islamic Union Party (SIUP), an umbrella of a few Islamist organizations with clan or tribal loyalties, as the main vehicle for Iranian-Sudanese operations, including the insertion of expert terrorists. In Somalia the SIUP continued to be influenced by the guidance and inclinations of Turabi. Muhammad Uthman, the SIUP’s nominal leader, issued political communiques in London but was not involved in actual activities in Somalia. The SIUP conducted initial military operations in June 1992, launching an attack in the Bosaso area in the north that proved indecisive. On-site activities were consolidated on August 15, 1992, by a major Iranian-Sudanese delegation that arrived in Marka for a major conference with local SIUP commanders on their future operational plans. The two senior officers in charge of Somalian operations, Rahim Safavi and Ali Uthman Taha, personally led the delegation, indicating its importance to both Tehran and Khartoum. The visiting experts determined what kind of assistance in training and equipment the SIUP required in order to become a potent military force and, on returning to Khartoum, ordered the quick implementation of their recommendations.
By fall 1992 the Islamist armed forces in Somalia were visibly growing and improving, with centers of operations in Mogadishu, Marka, and Bosaso. Iran, via Sudan, was the primary source of weapons and funds for these movements. The SIUP had a solid presence in Bosaso in the north and Marka and Jamaame in the south. Moreover, Sudanese loyalists were holding Laas Qoray, overlooking the Gulf of Aden, which is an ideal site for an antishipping base. Additional training camps for Islamists were established in Somaliland and in Ogaden, across the border in Ethiopia. Again bin Laden played a supporting but crucial role in this endeavor. Once Khartoum decided for operational reasons to establish base camps and storage sites in the Ogaden, on Ethiopian soil, bin Laden arranged for the establishment of “legitimate” international companies. These companies then launched agricultural development projects in the area, and these projects provided the cover for the transfer of funds into Ethiopia. Bin Laden then oversaw the quick transfer of “clean” funds from these projects to purchase numerous farms, built the required facilities, and paid the running expenses. This infrastructure would soon prove crucial for the Islamist surge into Somalia.
In fall 1992, once the media campaign in the West for a military-humanitarian intervention in Somalia began having an impact on political circles, Sudanese-Iranian activities escalated markedly. Turabi’s and Tehran’s proteges were immersed in a feverish attempt to align bases, disciples, and followers in the context of the famine. The most important preparations were virtually completed on the eve of the arrival of the first U.S. Marines. In Mogadishu, for example, a new Islamist organization “emerged” and joined the clannish street fighting alongside the forces of General Aidid. Aidid’s cooperation was ensured by the flow of additional material and logistical aid from Turabi. However, these Islamist forces “disappeared” just in time, days and hours before the marines hit the beaches.
The Islamists’ decision to fight the U.S. forces was determined by the Iranian-Sudanese strategy. The tenets of this strategy were clearly outlined in the Islamist analysis of the U.S. intervention. Islamists throughout the Middle East elucidated the perception of threat and the expediency of action as perceived by Khartoum and Tehran.
The Egyptian analysis, later emphasized by the Muslim Brotherhood, set the tone. It argued that the dispatch of U.S. forces to Somalia was part of a U.S.-Israeli conspiracy to prevent Arab and/or Muslim control over the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Palestinian Islamists were apprehensive that the forces amassed by the United States under the excuse of supporting Somalia were “a prelude to a U.S. military strike” against Sudan. The United States was “annoyed by Sudan’s successes in the Horn of Africa, especially Sudan’s increasing influence in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the influence it has on the Kenyan opposition, which is expected to win the next elections.” Even semiofficial Cairo conceded that “Sudan’s turn [may] come after Somalia.”
Writing in the authoritative Islamist newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, Dr. Hatim al-Husseini, an Islamist commentator and analyst, provided the most coherent Islamist analysis of the situation. He concluded that only an all-Islamic drastic action aimed at Arab and/or Muslim pro-Western regimes and the foreign forces could prevent another catastrophe:
This U.S. military intervention, on the pretext of humanitarian aid for the hungry, will consolidate the U.S. military presence in a new strategic region and strengthen the U.S. military presence in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. The direct cause of this U.S. military intervention is the Arab and Islamic failure to solve the problems of the Arab and Islamic nations.
It is the return of Western imperialism against a background of Arab and Islamic differences and backwardness. It is a new Western direct military control of important and sensitive areas in the heart of the Islamic Nation. It is a new proof of the Arab and Islamic governments’ failure to solve the Islamic Nation’s problems through joint unified actions.
Expressing Tehran’s view of the situation, HizbAllah warned that the real objective of the U.S. intervention in Somalia was Sudan. The United States could not tolerate the existence of a Sudanese policy based on the Sharia that challenged and confronted U.S. interests. “The [U.S.] return to the Horn of Africa is intended to confront the Islamic revival that shines from the Horn of Africa. This is not the first intervention and will not be the last. Washington must throw its weight and military strength against every Islamic or national awakening in any area that seeks to achieve independence and end subservient policies. This will be a common phenomenon by the end of this century and into the next.” HizbAllah concluded that only a resolute action could reverse this trend and ensure the progress of the Islamist revolution in the entire region.
In the first days of the U.S. intervention the military and organizational capabilities of the Islamists, especially the SIUP, were not tested because their leaders had avoided exposure. This inaction, observed an Arab official in private, “must be viewed as part of al-Turabi’s strategy aimed at building an Islamic belt around Sudan. Al-Turabi believes that such a belt would protect the experiment of making the country Islamic and turning it into a base for the Islamic movement in the Arab and African regions. The SIUP has counterparts in Kenya, Djibouti, and other African countries. The common denominator is that they are almost wholly guided by al-Turabi’s instructions.” Major intensification of the Islamist drive was taking place in Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Chad, and Kenya.
At the same time both Sudan and Iran not only “explicitly opposed the U.S. intervention in Somalia” but were apprehensive about the strategic ramifications of the presence of U.S. forces in the Horn of Africa. On November 28, 1992, the moment the United States declared its intention to deploy to Somalia, a large Iranian delegation led by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi and including some thirty members of the intelligence, security, and military services, economics experts, and diplomats rushed to Khartoum for urgent consultations on their joint reaction. As a result of Yazdi’s visit, a new “protocol for security cooperation” between Iran and Sudan was signed in Tehran by the two intelligence services. The primary objective of the new agreement was to expedite Tehran’s support for the Sudanese security agencies in sponsoring terrorism against and subversion of both domestic opposition and “other Arab regimes” in the region, Sudanese teams were already being trained by the IRGC intelligence in Mashhad and Qom.
Tehran and Khartoum decided on a combination of activating existing contingency plans and adopting some new drastic measures. A special committee headed by Ali Uthman Taha and including Sudanese and Iranian senior officials was put in charge of planning Somalian operations. The mission given to the Taha committee was “to turn Somalia into a trap and quagmire for the U.S. forces through a guerrilla war against them.” The committee decided not to do anything before the situation in Somalia was closely studied. “The committee will follow developments in the American military intervention in Somalia and draft plans to resist it” through local organizations and the SIUP.
The Taha committee’s decisions were immediately reflected by the reluctance of the SIUP and other Islamist forces to confront or resist the U.S. forces. “It is no secret that in its monitoring of the American action in Somalia, SIUP will not proceed out of Somalia’s interests alone, but also from what the party considers to be the interest of Islamic internationalism, which al-Turabi seeks to establish through several frameworks he derived to attract Islamic trends worldwide. The SIUP military action against the American presence in Somalia will be linked with developments in regional sensitivities connected with the international forces’ scope of action in the region,” explained a well-connected Lebanese analyst.
Tehran and Khartoum anticipated a major escalation against the U.S. and other Western forces. For these highly specialized and risky operations, Tehran authorized through Yazdi the establishment of the Somali Revolutionary Guard (SRG), to be manned by Iranian Pasdaran and Lebanese HizbAllah experts already based in Sudan. The SRG was put under the command of Ali Manshawi, an Iranian intelligence officer.
The Islamist forces also increased their preparations inside Somalia for the armed struggle against the Western forces. These preparations ranged from agitating the population to specific military buildup. “Hostility toward a U.N. presence is manifested in Friday sermons in Somalia’s mosques,” noted an on-site observer. Trained militants and fighters gathered in the SIUP’s camps in northern Somalia and the Ogaden. The flow of weapons from Pakistan, Iran, and Sudan—all channeled through Sudan—to these forces intensified markedly after late November 1992.
A coherent strategy for the Islamist struggle for Somalia was emerging. The Islamist sponsoring states decided that Somali Islamists (mainly the SIUP, with active support from the SRG and other terrorists) would capitalize on the growing politicization of the U.S. presence—such as involvement in “deal making” with warlords and tribes and/or clans—“to promote fighting the U.S. presence to drive the American forces out before the United States achieves its [real] objectives.” The SIUP considered the real U.S. objectives to be (1) controlling the new oil grid in Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Yemen, which was the ultimate reason for and hidden agenda behind the “humanitarian” arrival of the marines; (2) setting up a pro-American government in Mogadishu; and (3) advancing from Somalia into southern Sudan, which would then become “a region to wear out the Islamic question” the same way that Iraqi Kurdistan was already being used to wear out Saddam Hussein. The Taha committee would order the escalation of the fighting in Somalia and especially activation of the elite terrorist forces only when it perceived the American actions to be threatening the strategic interests of Tehran and Khartoum.
Despite the decision not to engage the U.S. forces in Somalia, the Islamist leadership could not afford to let the beginning of a U.S. presence in the Horn of Africa go unnoticed. It was imperative to strike—even if symbolically—at an indirect facet of this buildup just to gain attention. It was decided to hit the recently established U.S. support installations in Aden, South Yemen, because they both supported preparations for the Somalian intervention and were in Asia, across the Red Sea from Africa. With the primary Iranian-Sudanese networks preoccupied with preparations for the anticipated major confrontation in Mogadishu, someone else would need to oversee this effort. Osama bin Laden, with his comprehensive contacts in both Yemen and Afghanistan-Pakistan, was ideal for the job.
Operating under tremendous time pressure, bin Laden decided to capitalize on old and proven contacts to expedite the strike. The main strike force would be drawn from the ranks of Yemenite “Afghans.” The original plan called for bombing a couple of hotels in Aden used by U.S. military personnel and facilities in the sea and at airports. To ensure the plan’s completion despite all the difficulties and challenges, bin Laden convinced Sheikh Tariq al-Fadli to leave his London exile and personally take charge of the operation. Fadli was covertly inserted into Yemen in mid-November. To save time the large sums of money required for the scheme were transferred via accounts related to bin Laden’s businesses in Yemen.
In early December the strike force was taking shape under the cover of the Yemeni Islamic Jihad organization. The main terrorists were drawn from the ranks of some 500 highly trained Yemeni “Afghans” under the direct command of Sheikh Tariq al-Fadli. Their main base was in the Saadah area. Because of the time constraints bin Laden and Fadli decided to use Islamic Jihad hit squads already in place in Aden to assassinate local politicians. For the planned operation against the Americans, these squads would be augmented with expert bomb makers and additional equipment.
Toward this end a special training facility was hastily organized in the Saadah area, in northern Yemen, some 50 miles south of the Saudi border. At least one Libyan expert bomb maker was brought in from Afghanistan-Pakistan. Additional expert terrorists, as well as the equipment and weapons needed for the operation, were smuggled from Sudan across the Red Sea to an isolated coast near al-Khawkhah, on the northern coast of Yemen. One of the Libyan “Afghans” established his “school” in a safe house near Saadah. His role was to train several Yemenite “Afghans” as bomb makers and bombers and supervise the construction of the bombs. The Libyan left Yemen and vanished the day before the Aden attack.
On December 29 the Islamist terrorists detonated bombs in the Aden Hotel and Golden Moor Hotel in Aden, killing three and wounding five. In addition, a strike team carrying RPG-7 rocket launchers was caught near the fences of the Aden airport getting ready to launch at U.S. Air Force transport planes, including a C-5 Galaxy, parked nearby.
The haste of implementing these quick operations resulted in numerous security lapses. On December 31 Egyptian intelligence, which was called in by the Yemeni government to help in the investigation, already had proof that “the leader of the terrorist groups that are trying to spoil security and stability in Yemen is a person named Osama bin Laden.” On January 8, 1993, Sheikh Tariq al-Fadli and his followers surrendered to Yemeni authorities, their mission accomplished.
Sheikh Abdul Majid Zandani, another friend of bin Laden’s and follower of Turabi, delivered the political message. In permitting the presence of U.S. troops, the Yemeni government was implementing “practices and initiatives that undermine Islam.” No wonder there was an indigenous groundswell leading to terrorism, he argued. Pointing out that the mere presence of U.S. forces in Aden was causing terrorism and putting public safety at risk, Zandani asked, “Why can’t the Americans go directly to Mogadishu?” This statement underscored, although indirectly, the real message of this terrorist operation.
Back in Khartoum, despite the failure of the strike on the Aden airport, Turabi and the Islamist elite were satisfied, for the Islamist rage over the U.S. activities in the Horn of Africa had been clearly expressed. Osama bin Laden was highly praised for having pulled off such a complicated operation on such short notice. His willingness to use and risk his personal assets was duly noted. He would play an even greater role in the forthcoming confrontation in Somalia.
THE MAJOR ESCALATION of the fighting in Mogadishu that took place in fall 1993 was the implementation of the long-term plan decided on by Tehran and Khartoum. This escalation was also the first manifestation of a strategic alliance between Iran, Iraq, and Sudan. In early 1993 Iraq embarked on a revitalization of its terrorist campaign under an Islamist banner, with active support from Turabi and Sudan. Baghdad was using “Afghans” who had been retrained in camps run by Iraqi intelligence and special forces near Baghdad. These Iraqi-controlled Islamist terrorists were now operating in close cooperation with the Iranian-controlled Islamist international terrorist system.
In early December 1992 Yazdi, Turabi, and Bashir decided that in February 1993 they would conduct a major and thorough reexamination of the situation in the entire region even if no major crisis had erupted. These consultations would take place during a conference of nineteen Islamist movements “linked with the Islamic Revolution in Iran” that would be convened in Khartoum by Turabi. The Khartoum conference would examine the prudence of initiating a major escalation in the Horn of Africa and its impact on such related issues as the Islamist subversion of Egypt, stability in the Persian Gulf, and the long-planned revival of Islamist international terrorism in Western Europe and the United States. The conference would also examine the influence that the anticipated developments in the Horn of Africa would have on the overall posture of the Tehran-led Islamic bloc and the various contingency plans then being studied in Tehran, from terrorism against Israel to the possibility of launching a Middle East war. But on instructions from the leaders in Tehran and Khartoum, implementation of the first phase of the plan began immediately, before this conference, so that the Islamist forces could immediately meet any challenge.
For the operations in Somalia, Tehran began to draw on never before used strategic terrorist assets—the “al-Quds Forces.” In the mid-1980s Iran had drafted and trained a large number of Afghan refugees as terrorists and saboteurs under the supervision of the IRGC. Some 1,200 additional “Afghans” in Pakistan were involved in drug smuggling to Europe and the United States, using networks affiliated with Iranian intelligence. These “Afghans” constituted the core of the al-Quds Forces—the Tehran-controlled individual cadres integrated into the Sunni international terrorist system. Many of these “Afghans” had been transferred to Sudan in preparation for their use in the anticipated Islamist struggle in the Horn of Africa. Simultaneously in late fall 1992 Pakistani and Iranian intelligence officials had made hectic efforts to purchase leftover Stinger missiles held by the mujahideen. These weapons were also shipped to Sudan for possible use in Somalia.
The IRGC continued to expand the training of Sunni Islamist terrorists in Iran. By late 1992 some 9,000 Arab “Afghans,” mainly from Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, and Tunisia, were in the IRGC training camps in Mashhad and Qom. A marked increase began in the training of elite terrorists from Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Persian Gulf States. The main training center was the Imam Ali department in Saadabad, a former palace of the Shah in northern Tehran, where the al-Quds Forces were being trained. The direct commander of the al-Quds Forces was General Ahmad Vahidi, formerly the head of the Information Department of IRGC General Command, which was responsible for “the export of the revolution”—that is, sponsorship of terrorism. In the Imam Ali department the terrorists were trained primarily as instructors and commanders who would run and expand networks in their homelands. They also received sophisticated sabotage training. The Saudis and the Persian Gulf Arabs traveled to the Imam Ali department in Iran with specially provided Syrian passports. Other Sunni terrorists from Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf countries were trained in Qom, Tabriz, and Mashhad. Candidates from “secular” states first received theological and ideological instructions and tempering in Qom and only then were sent to military training in the Saadabad camp near Tehran. Follow-up and refresher courses were organized in Lebanon and Sudan. The instructors were IRGC and al-Quds Forces officers.
Between late 1992 and early 1993 “Afghans” associated with these Iranian al-Quds Forces were deployed to several sites in the Horn of Africa—from Sudan to Yemen, including Somalia and the Ogaden—pending an escalation. They included an elite unit of some 500 members of Yemen’s Islamic Jihad, all of them “Afghans” and all loyal to Sheikh Tariq al-Fadli. The collapse of their terrorist effort in Aden did not diminish the commitment of the bulk of this force. Because the Iranian and Sudanese planners had opted for larger, high-quality forces back in 1992, Osama bin Laden organized the transfer from Pakistan to Yemen of yet another force, a total of 3,000 Yemeni “Afghans.” These “Afghans” brought with them heavy weapons and terrorist equipment, including high explosives, sophisticated remote-control bombs, booby-trapped dolls, and a few Stingers. This “Afghan” elite force established bases in the Saadah area in the al-Maraqishah Mountains, Yemen. In mid-1993, with the escalation in Mogadishu looming, bin Laden moved these “Afghans,” their weapons, and their equipment from Yemen to Somalia in a quick airlift. He would later tell an Egyptian interviewer that this operation cost him $3 million of his own money.
At the same time Iranian Pasdaran and Somalian terrorists, directly controlled and sponsored by Iran, were being organized in Sudan to provide support and supplies for Sudanese Islamic Union (SIUP) units trained in the art of surprise suicide operations. In addition several hundred Arab “Afghans” earmarked for intervention in Somalia were dispatched to camps in western Sudan near the Libyan border for advanced training pending dispatch to Somalia.
These initial preparations were completed on time in the middle of February 1993 to meet the scheduled February examination of progress agreed on by Yazdi, Turabi, and Bashir back in December 1992. On February 19 Iranian terrorist experts, who had just arrived from Tehran, and members of AIM’s Higher Liaison Committee convened in Khartoum to thoroughly study the situation in the Horn of Africa and Egypt and the latest developments in the posture of the New York terrorist network then operating under the spiritual guidance of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. The experts were satisfied with the preparations and ordered the several outstanding terrorist contingency plans to go ahead—including the escalation of terrorism in Somalia and the World Trade Center bombing in the United States. Senior commanders of the SIUP took part in the meetings in Khartoum and were intimately involved in the decision to escalate the armed struggle against the United States.
Senior commanders serving under Muhammad Farrah Aidid also took part in some of the sessions in Khartoum and agreed wholeheartedly to implement the Iranian-Sudanese operational plan. In the aftermath of the Khartoum conference, over a period of from six to eight weeks, Aidid and his key military and intelligence aides traveled repeatedly to Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda to acquaint themselves with the other components of the master plan. Aidid himself traveled clandestinely at least twice to both Sudan and Iran in order to discuss strategy and methods of “dealing with the international forces” in Somalia as well as to coordinate the modalities for the arrival of “increased aid should the situation escalate into military confrontations.”
While in Khartoum in early spring 1993, Aidid also held important meetings with Iraqi intelligence officials in the Iraqi Embassy. These meetings and the subsequent arrangement with Baghdad were organized by Hassan al-Turabi as a key element in his effort to further consolidate the strategic alliance between Iran, Sudan, and Iraq, with special emphasis on saving Sudan from U.S. intervention. Baghdad promised Aidid extensive help in what an Iraqi official defined as “the framework of a comprehensive confrontation plan created to resist the United States and international forces in Somalia, and turn it into a new Vietnam.” Baghdad also agreed to support Turabi in strengthening other Islamist militant groups all over the Horn of Africa.
In the spring the Mogadishu operation became so important to Baghdad that Saddam Hussein nominated his son Qusay to personally supervise the anti-American operations in Somalia and the Horn of Africa as a whole. Iraqi intelligence officials in Khartoum said Saddam Hussein was determined “to achieve a Mother of Battles victory in Somalia.” Soon afterward the Iraqi Embassy in Khartoum was expanded by the arrival of several intelligence and special forces experts, including members of Saddam Hussein’s own Special Security Agency. They were charged with supporting the “war scenario against the United States and international forces in Somalia.” Turabi was recognized as the senior authority in this joint effort.
Several detachments of expert Islamist terrorists, including Iranian Pasdaran; Lebanese HizbAllah; Arab, mainly Egyptian, “Afghans”; and local Islamist elements—members of Sudan’s National Islamic Front, the SIUP of Somalia, Kenya’s Islamic Republic Organization, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Ethiopia, and Eritrea’s Islamic Jihad—were secretly deployed by June 1993. This infiltration of Somalia with yet another force of some 3,000 Islamist terrorists and extensive quantities of weapons and equipment was also a bin Laden operation. The Islamist networks in Mombasa, Kenya, received a small number of these terrorists and smuggled them into Somalia. The bulk of this Islamist force, however, converged on the “farms” bin Laden had acquired, and there they established their rear and support facilities. From these safe havens they sent forward elements that first established training camps and storage sites in the Mogadishu area. The first “Afghans” to arrive in Somalia were expert terrorists who “specialized in gang wars, street fighting, booby-trapped cars, commando operations, and sniping operations” with the task of destabilizing Mogadishu. All this time the SIUP was receiving reinforcements and supplies in Bosaso and Laas Qoray in anticipation of the escalation. Senior SIUP commanders arrived in Marka and Mogadishu in May to prepare for the escalation, study conditions in the theater, and then return to Khartoum for further consultations.
In the early summer, once the initial preparations were completed, including deployment of terrorist experts, the Islamist detachments, operating in and out of Aidid’s parts of Mogadishu, began a series of ambushes, including bombing attacks, on the U.S.-U.N. forces to test the validity of the senior officials’ reading of those forces’ reaction. These test runs culminated in a lethal ambush on June 5, 1993. The Western (U.S. and U.N.) version is that militiamen of General Aidid killed twenty-three to twenty-six Pakistani U.N. troops, forces contributed by Islamabad in order to placate the Clinton administration and “balance” the impact of its growing sponsorship of terrorist activities. In reality, it was the baptism by fire of the “Afghan” forces.
In Somalia this clash had an immediate and dramatic impact on the strength and cohesion of the Islamist alliance under Aidid’s banner. A unified high command emerged. Even allies-turned-enemies of Aidid acknowledged that in his confrontation with the “oppressive” U.N.-U.S. troops, Aidid had consolidated and solidified a widespread alliance and popular support. The former president of Somaliland, Abdirahman Tur, called Aidid a “hero” for resisting and confronting the West, especially the Americans. Mohammad Hassan Awali, Aidid’s foreign affairs adviser, stressed that as a result of the operations against the U.N.-U.S. forces, many tribes and political/military forces joined the SNA-led coalition and recognized Aidid as their supreme leader.
But far more important events were already taking place elsewhere. U.N. patrols responded with heavy fire to the continued ambushes and bombing attacks. In the aftermath of this U.S.-led U.N. reaction to the escalation of the fighting in Mogadishu, Aidid warned of a widespread escalation. “If they [U.N.-U.S. forces] attack somebody, it will be the general public they attack,” he warned. On June 11, soon after subsequent clashes with the Pakistani and American forces, Aidid and several of his senior military aides left Mogadishu.
Aidid and his senior aides went to Khartoum to take part in special consultations conducted under cover of a special session of the People’s Arab and Islamic Congress chaired by Turabi. The public session was dedicated to condemning “U.S. genocide” against Muslims as demonstrated in Somalia and Palestine. In closed sessions the congress decided to escalate the struggle and increase Islamist help for the Somalis, including the activation of assets. Although invited to participate in this conference, bin Laden elected to act as one of Turabi’s inner circle of advisers. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad based in Pakistan-Afghanistan and now a close ally of both bin Laden and Tehran, took part in the Khartoum conference. The importance of this conference is apparent from the presence of extremely high-level Iranian intelligence officials and other Islamist terrorist experts who also discussed and approved in clandestine meetings terrorist plans for a series of spectacular July 4 bombings in New York. (This plan was narrowly averted by the FBI.)
The June Khartoum conference constituted a milestone in Iran’s strategic approach to the region. With Tehran concentrating on escalating terrorism in Europe—in connection with the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina—and especially in the United States, the Iranian senior officials gave the green light for Baghdad to assume a greater role in running the operations in Somalia. These operations remained, however, under the tight control of a joint high command controlled by Tehran and Khartoum.
The Khartoum conference also formulated the Iraqi-Sudanese-Iranian contingency plans “to confront the Americans in Somalia” with the aim of “drawing them into a land war, street battles, attack and retreat, and ambushes, as was done in Vietnam.” Once U.S. forces redeployed from too hot Mogadishu into seemingly safe areas in the countryside, new Islamist forces would be introduced into action, attacking them wherever they might be. All of these operations in Somalia were part of “a plan to expand the battle to other areas of the Horn of Africa, and to a broad, armed, mass mobilization against America and the West throughout the region, in a war taking on the dimension of a grand war of vengeance between the Islamists and the United States, whose outcome would be even worse than the result of the Vietnam War.”
The Sudanese propaganda machine began disseminating the logic for the forthcoming clash in Somalia. Sudan’s minister of state for presidential affairs explained the logic of Sudan’s intervention in Somalia. If the United States succeeded in Somalia, it would turn on Islamist Sudan. But because of the Islamist intervention in Somalia, the United States “has achieved no success likely to encourage a similar operation in Sudan.” In Khartoum newspapers and other media blasted the U.N. operations, insisting that the United States had sent the Pakistanis to their death intentionally so that Washington would have an excuse to intervene and return in full force. Khartoum also argued that the singling out of Aidid by the United Nations—the Pakistanis operated near Aidid’s radio station when they were ambushed—constituted proof that the United Nations was carrying out Washington’s anti-Islamist policy. Sudan’s foreign minister warned the United States that “if they decided to interfere in Sudan, they would be met with resistance and a declaration of Jihad.”
From June 13 to 15 the United States conducted several air strikes. Despite the damage to facilities, Somali militia put up a stiff resistance. They fought the U.S. ground troops and escorting Cobra gunships that attempted to capture Aidid’s house.
Meanwhile, immediately after the conclusion of the Khartoum conference, several of the key terrorist experts traveled clandestinely to Somalia, even into Mogadishu, to personally inspect the situation and assess whether changes should be made because of the escalation. The senior on-site Islamist commanders who would take charge of the forthcoming escalation participated in these trips. For example, Zawahiri visited Somaliland as part of a clandestine Islamist delegation of experts sent to set up a new logistical system that would sustain the projected flow of “Afghans” and massive quantities of weapons and ammunition for the anticipated escalation in assistance for Aidid. The predominantly Egyptian “Afghan” force—which also included Saudi, Afghan, and Algerian “Afghans”—would operate under the banner of the Vanguard of Islamic Conquest, with Zawahiri as the senior on-site commander. In Khartoum, Osama bin Laden was organizing yet another set of lines of communications and logistical support systems. In fact, he was leading an immense effort to move thousands of people clandestinely from Sudan to Somalia through third countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Many of these moves would take place under extremely inhospitable desert conditions. Toward this end bin Laden arranged for trucks and fuel; food and water; weapons, ammunition, and explosives; and medical kits. The forces on the move had to be provided with lodging, resupply points, means of communication, and reception points. Bin Laden also arranged for a great deal of money to be transferred to both Ethiopia and Eritrea so that locally available items and services could be purchased.
By now the Islamist infrastructure was beginning to consolidate. The main Islamist terrorist bases were south of Mogadishu and in Kismayu, Bardheere, Marka (where the SIUP was centered), and Galcaio (Aidid’s backup headquarters and storage site for heavy weapons, tanks, artillery, and the like). Iranian IRGC intelligence established a separate logistical center in Bosaso to insert clandestinely antitank and antiaircraft weapons, including SA-7s. Some 900 of Iran’s own Pasdaran and HizbAllah fighters, organized as the SRG, deployed in Somalia for spectacular operations. In addition, about 1,200 members of Iraq’s elite strike forces—al-Saiqah Commando—deployed to Somalia. Both forces prepared to participate in the all-out attack on the U.S. forces. The Islamist experts had already trained, organized, and equipped some 15,000 Somalis in these camps and were ready to lead them into combat against the Americans.
The U.S. attack in Mogadishu on July 12, 1993, was interpreted by the senior commanders in Khartoum as the beginning of the long-anticipated escalation. Immediately a meeting of thirty senior commanders, including foreigners and members of the Habar Gidir tribe, was convened by Aidid to decide on implementing the escalation plan formulated in Khartoum. They ordered activation of the contingent in Bosaso, with operatives from Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and the Horn of Africa. High-level consultations also took place between Sudan and Iran on the situation in Somalia and what to do about it.
Fighting, including attacks on civilian aid workers, escalated during early July not just in Mogadishu but also all over central Somalia. This escalation reflected Aidid’s widening alliances. On July 12 the SNA issued a communiqué vowing that it would “continue to fight until the last United Nations soldier departs.” Special vengeance would be taken against the American troops because they continued “to carry out their own genocide and massacre of the Somali people.” Leaflets in English and Somali were spread all over Mogadishu, warning the citizens to be aware of an imminent attack on U.S. forces. Aidid’s followers were urged to strike at the Americans in order to “avenge their dead.” In another manifesto Aidid urged Somalis to take on the superior U.N.-U.S. forces despite the odds and “sacrifice themselves for freedom” while fighting “what goes against their dignity.” Aidid’s forces fired at the U.S. Embassy and attacked other U.N. positions all over Mogadishu while Aidid supporters continued mass rallies and demonstrations. Sporadic attacks continued until the end of July 1993.
The new self-confidence was clearly expressed in Aidid’s propaganda during the second half of July. A senior aide, Mohamad Salad Mahmud Habib, argued that the U.N. pursued a “policy of neo-colonialism [that] comes under the guise of humanitarian assistance and ensuring peace. These eventually lead to direct interference in the internal affairs of a country while pursuing the policies of divide and conquer, creating confrontations, inciting people against each other, and selling and splitting them into tribes, clans, subclans, right down to family levels.” Aidid’s radio repeatedly reported that the U.S.-led U.N. forces were intentionally destroying mosques and other historical Islamic sites. Farah Ali Mohammad Duur-gube, a noted writer, declared that “Somali fighters have agreed to defend their country, the dignity of their people and their religion, and to make the neo-colonialists taste hell on earth. God willing, in the hereafter they will also be cast into hell even worse than that [in Mogadishu]. Let us kill them all, right to the last of these demoralized colonialists.”
Aidid’s high-profile propaganda, which attracted U.S. and U.N. attention, was actually a cover for the arrival of new participants in the Mogadishu urban war. The new Islamist force, called the Vanguard of the Somali Islamic Salvation, was a “Somalization” of Iran’s Egyptian-led “Afghans.” On August 3, 1993, in the first communiqué broadcast on their own radio station and in leaflets, the Vanguard urged Somalis to escalate their jihad against the “satanic” U.S. forces. Somalis must “launch a Holy War against the satanic troops of the United States.… Every Muslim is obliged to take part in this war.” The very same day Aidid’s radio station stressed the Iranian propaganda line that the United States was the organizer of global terrorism aimed primarily at Muslim and Third World countries. An aide to Aidid elaborated, explaining that an important part of U.S. colonialism was also the spread of higher education among the literate in order to brainwash them into assuming pro-U.S. and anti-Islamic positions.
During early August 1993 Aidid’s forces and those of his allies were making last-minute preparations for a major escalation of the fighting in southern Mogadishu. The Islamists anticipated that “a decisive battle will inevitably occur between General Aidid and the international, and particularly the American, forces.” Highly trained Islamist units from the Habar Gidir tribe were first introduced into combat against the Americans. Under the name Somali Islamic Salvation Movement (SISM), they claimed responsibility for the August 11 blast, achieved by a HizbAllah-style remote-controlled bomb, that killed four American soldiers. “SISM has so far carried out several operations aimed at eliminating Yankees and their puppets, and managed to kill four devils of the U.S. Yankees,” their communiqué read. The SISM explained that it was also waging an “Islamic struggle against the infidels and pagans” in order to “restore Islamic law” in Somalia. Arab observers noted that “General Aidid’s calls for Jihad have come to be transmitted from the communications media of this relatively organized Islamic group that is thought to have financial resources reaching it from outside the borders.” This flow of funds, the importance of which was stressed by the Arab observers, was organized and run by Osama bin Laden. Operating in the shadows, he continued to facilitate Islamist activities with a sustained and efficient support system, a contribution crucial to the Islamist war effort. Also in early August one of Aidid’s envoys visited Libya to arrange for additional financial and military assistance to implement the planned escalation of the fighting against the U.S.-U.N. forces.
The full gravity of the mid-August escalation was best expressed in Khartoum. After consultations with Tehran, General Bashir erroneously concluded that a U.S. military intervention against Sudan could be expected in late December or early January. Turabi and Ali Uthman consulted on how to best prepare for such an eventuality, emphasizing prevention or preemption of this U.S. military intervention. Reflecting the mood in Khartoum, Brigadier Abdul-Rahim Muhammad Hussein affirmed that Sudan was “on the road of Jihad and bearing arms to defend faith and the homeland.” Tehran was confident that despite threats, Khartoum remained determined to continue its “struggle” with the United States. Mustafa Uthman, one of Turabi’s aides, urged the establishment of an Iranian-Sudanese “common strategy” against the United States to prevent collapse of the Islamic stand in the region.
In Mogadishu, Aidid’s radio stated that the crisis was “deepening day by day” and anticipated an inevitable explosion. Aidid also declared all U.N. forces to be legitimate targets in the struggle against the United States because the United Nations was serving U.S. interests and its troops were taking part in “the genocide and destruction [peddled] by the United States of America.” The propaganda theme now repeated all over Mogadishu was that the United States was planning “to massacre innocent Somalis … to attain its colonialist objectives.” Fighting in Mogadishu was just part of a major offensive aimed at subverting the Somalis and inciting civil war. Aidid accused the United States of masterminding a campaign of massacres and terrorism and urged Islamic solidarity with the plight of the Somalis. Aidid’s radio predicted an imminent escalation in the attacks on civilian quarters of Mogadishu.
As before, anticipation of the escalation was not without foundation. In early September 1993, on orders from Khartoum, the Islamist elite forces, under the banner of the Somali Islamic Union Party (SIUP), engaged the American forces. Although they had been preparing for combat even before the arrival of U.S. forces back in early December 1992, the SIUP forces had not intervened in the fighting until this point and had let Aidid conduct most of the fighting. On September 3 the Somali Islamic Union announced in Tehran that it had launched a series of attacks on U.N. positions in the Mogadishu area. On September 5 Aidid’s forces joined the battle and ambushed the Nigerian contingent, part of the U.N. forces, killing seven soldiers. It took a massive intervention of U.S. troops and heavy fire support to relieve the hard-pressed Nigerians.
Khartoum was now confident that the time was ripe for the next escalatory phase. On September 10 the true escalation in the Islamist confrontation with U.S. forces started. The assault began with a series of diversionary attacks by the Islamist Habar Gidir tribal forces on Somalis considered friendly to the United Nations. The U.S.-U.N. forces intervened as expected and fell into an Islamist trap. What appeared to be an intra-Somali clash suddenly turned into an organized ambush and attack on the U.N.-U.S. forces. The U.S. forces retaliated and escalated the conflict. Over the next day the U.S. forces attacked sites of Aidid’s SNA forces even though they had played only a minor role in the earlier clashes. Aidid interpreted the attack, and not without reason, as an intentional U.S. effort to affect the balance of power in Mogadishu. He ordered his followers to take part in massive street demonstrations and to launch mortar shells on U.N.-U.S. facilities.
The inevitable result was the eruption on September 13, 1993, of fierce fighting between U.S. forces and Aidid’s, with Cobra gunship attacks on Aidid’s key sites, including a hospital also used as headquarters and a storage facility. Aidid’s people claimed that American forces killed numerous civilians in their attacks and vowed revenge. A cycle of violence began. On September 15 Aidid and the Islamists launched a daylight mortar attack on the U.N. headquarters, and in retaliation the U.S. forces fired mortar shells at the site of Aidid’s headquarters. Aidid’s supporters, mainly women and children, stoned U.N. patrols in the streets of Mogadishu. The U.N. soldiers opened fire on the crowd to break away, further exacerbating the crisis. The repeated claims of Somalian officials, all supporters of Ali Mahdi Muhammad, and Arabs that “General Aidid is the one responsible for this confrontation” increased the confusion.
The United States embarked on an intentional confrontation with Aidid. After U.S. Rangers captured Osman Hassan Ali (Ato), Aidid’s close friend and right-hand man, Aidid ordered retaliatory escalation to deter future raids on his people. Islamist expert terrorists and SNA forces started ambushing American helicopters. On September 26 a Somalian ambush shot down a U.S. UH-60 Blackhawk over Mogadishu. In the United States the televised specter of the jubilant Somalian mob dragging the defiled bodies of American servicemen through the streets of Mogadishu—and the wreckage of the U.S. helicopters—brought home the extent of the debacle. For the Islamists the clash served as a boost to further escalate the confrontation with the United States.
In late September, Khartoum interpreted the marked escalation in the fighting in Mogadishu as a turning point in the Somalian Islamist struggle that, if pursued correctly, would ultimately lead to U.S. losses and withdrawal from Somalia. Tehran ridiculed the United States’ accusations of Iranian relations (a “tactical alliance”) with Aidid as a mere excuse for the U.S. inability to confront, let alone prevail over, the Islamist trend in Somalia. Isse Mohamed Siad, Aidid’s foreign affairs adviser, lamented the change in the character of the U.N. role in Mogadishu. “They [U.N.-U.S.] came to help the Somali people, but their operational method has become one of destruction, bombardment, and arrests with no recourse to law—but rather to the use of force and the barrel of the gun.”
In fall 1993 there was no longer any doubt that the escalation of the fighting in Somalia was a result of the long-term plan decided on by Tehran and Khartoum to use the “Islamic International,” all the Islamic forces, in a major operation intended to transform Mogadishu into a “second Kabul” or a “second Beirut” for the Americans. By late September the Islamists considered the United States to be entrapped in the Mogadishu quagmire, ripe for a painful humiliation. Expressing the Islamists’ strategy, Aidid instructed his troops to “be ready, in concert with our friends and allies, to get rid of the Western occupiers of our country” and “send American and Pakistani soldiers back home in coffins.”
Somalian rhetoric and Western propaganda notwithstanding, the escalation in Mogadishu was the first major operation conducted under the general command established the preceding summer in Khartoum for the Islamic International. Hassan al-Turabi was now functioning as the senior leader, with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdallah Jaweed (an Afghan Islamist), and Qamar al-Din Dharban (an Algerian) serving under him and directly responsible for the military activities. Osama bin Laden was responsible for the logistical support. In fall 1993 Zawahiri was already in Somalia, operating as the on-site commander in charge and field coordinator. He was working along with his senior “Afghan” commanders and Aidid’s senior military aides.
The entire Islamist operational plan was based on the sustained availability of large quantities of ammunition and supplies, which was bin Laden’s responsibility. To ensure surprise and avoid preemptive strikes by U.N. forces, these supplies had to be pushed forward from the storage sites in Somaliland to Mogadishu at the last minute. Bin Laden tackled this challenge successfully, presaging future Islamist operational successes.
The most important field commander Zawahiri brought with him to Somalia was Ali al-Rashidi, also known as Abu-Ubaydah al-Banshiri or Abu-Ubaydah al-Banjashiri. An Egyptian confidant of al-Zawahiri for many years, in the 1970s al-Rashidi was a clandestine member of Islamic Jihad in the ranks of the Egyptian police. He was arrested in 1981 in the sweeps following Sadat’s assassination, and by 1986 he had spent a total of three years in prison in periodic detention. In 1986 he successfully escaped to Afghanistan, where he first fought with Ahmad Shah Massud’s forces in the Panjshir Valley and later joined bin Laden’s forces. He and bin Laden became close friends. According to Egyptian sources, “al-Rashidi was Osama bin Laden’s right arm” and supervised the base camps set up by bin Laden in Afghanistan to train Arab mujahideen. Al-Rashidi was also instrumental in cementing the ties between bin Laden and the Egyptian Islamist leaders, including Zawahiri. With the fighting in Afghanistan dwindling down, al-Rashidi began traveling to other jihad fronts as organizer of elite forces based on “Afghans.” In that capacity he participated in Islamist jihad operations in Eritrea, Ogaden, Burma, Kashmir, Tajikstan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Libya. In fall 1993 Zawahiri put him in command of one of his elite units in Mogadishu.
While Aidid’s forces would have an increasingly high profile in the escalation in Mogadishu, the real high-quality military assistance was provided to the elite Islamist forces of the SIUP and was earmarked for carrying out the spectacular guerrilla attacks on the U.N.-U.S. forces. In addition the Islamist forces in Somalia, both Arab “Afghans” and Somalian Islamists, were receiving an intense flow of last-minute reinforcements and supplies of high-quality weapons. For the main infiltration of experts and sophisticated equipment, Abdallah Jaweed and Osama bin Laden recruited several ex-DRA Afghan military pilots, all veterans of the massive resupply efforts into besieged DRA garrisons, to fly small transport planes into isolated airfields in Somalia at night. Heavier equipment was smuggled nightly into Somaliland by bin Laden’s flotilla of small fishing boats operating out of neighboring countries, mainly Yemen and Kenya. From these points of entry the weapons and people were smuggled by small nomadic caravans into safe houses in the Mogadishu area. A major outcome of this resupply surge was the establishment of a well-organized clandestine headquarters in Mogadishu from which a few Somalian, Afghan, and Algerian experts in urban guerrilla warfare would run the imminent escalation.
The vastly improved capabilities of the Islamist-supported Somalis were clearly demonstrated on the afternoon of October 3, 1993. The U.N.-U.S. forces learned about the presence of two of Aidid’s senior foreign policy advisers, Osman Salah and Muhammad Hassan Awali, at the Olympic Hotel. A hasty heliborne assault of fewer than 100 American troops was organized and swiftly captured the two, as well as twenty-two other Aidid supporters, on-site. What seemed a highly successful raid suddenly turned into a major clash. As the U.S. troops prepared for their departure by helicopter, they fell into a well-organized ambush by more than a thousand Somalis. Two UH-60S were shot down, and a third crash-landed at the Mogadishu airport. The American troops established a defensive perimeter around the crash site but were then surrounded and subjected to a sustained fire attack for some eleven hours until they were relieved by a U.S.-U.N. rescue force. In the firefight eighteen American troops were killed, seventy-eight were wounded, and one helicopter pilot was captured. He would be released ten days later. At least 700 Somalis, both fighters and civilians, were injured in the fighting, and some 300 of them were killed. The next day Mogadishu celebrated a great victory, dragging the bodies of American servicemen through the streets.
Numerous Middle Eastern sources insisted that the Mogadishu fighting of late September and especially early October 1993 was a key phase in Islamist-dominated escalation. They attributed the sudden improvement in the performance of the Somali forces to the fact that Iranian-trained Somalis and Arab “Afghans,” as well as troops of the Iraqi Saiqah Commando, were directly involved in the Mogadishu fighting, particularly that of October 3, 1993. Many other reports confirm the Islamist analysis.
All the sources agree that the October 3 operation was the first major endeavor by Zawahiri and his expert staff in the Mogadishu area. Additional Iranian senior advisers were on-site, operating under the cover of journalists, with Aidid and his military commanders. The Iranians’ presence was also clearly reflected in repeated interviews with Aidid on Radio Tehran and in Iranian magazines.
The intelligence tip received by the U.S. forces in Mogadishu about the presence of Aidid’s people at the Olympic Hotel was only a trap set for the Americans. The two SNA officials, although personally close to Aidid, were responsible for contacts and negotiations with the U.S.-U.N. that were dormant at the time, and so the two were expendable. Also, the Americans could be counted on not to kill their prisoners and to release them in due course.
The ensuing ambush was conducted by a hard-core Islamist force under the overall command of al-Rashidi and led by Arab “Afghans” and the Iraqis. The main strike force consisted of SIUP troops trained by Iranians and Iraqis. Under the command of al-Rashidi, the Arab “Afghans”—including Algerian and Egyptian fighters—played a major role in organizing and running the ambush and siege of the U.S. ground troops. Arab mujahideen fought at the front. The Iraqis organized the heavy weapons, mainly the dual-use 23mm guns and RPG-7S, which were used primarily against the U.S. helicopters. The Iraqis were also instrumental in running the external perimeter, blocking repeated U.S.-U.N. attempts to relieve the besieged force in the defensive perimeter. The Arab “Afghans” were in command of some of the Somalian blocking forces as well. Reports conflict as to the extent of Iraqi participation in the actual fighting. A few Saiqah Commando troops were definitely present, giving instructions to SIUP fighters. It is not clear whether Iraqis actually pulled triggers. The Arab “Afghans” took an active part in the fighting, leading from the front while demonstrating their immense personal bravery. Aidid’s people, both militiamen and civilians, were introduced in huge numbers in time to create the enraged mob and join the onslaught, as well as take casualties and the blame.
There were strong indications of the growing Iranian and Islamist influence over Aidid and the entire SNA. On the eve of the main clash Tehran endorsed Aidid’s claim, stated in a long interview with the Iranian paper Resalat, that the clashes with the U.S. forces were a spontaneous popular reaction to attacks on civilians by American forces. Aidid stressed that the SNA was not involved in these fights because it had already been disarmed by the U.S.-U.N. forces.
The main rally held in Mogadishu in the aftermath of the October 3 clash with the U.S. forces was Islamist. Sheikh Abdul-Razzaq Yussuf Adan led the crowd in reciting verses from the Koran. The main speaker was Sheikh Hassan Mahmud Salad, who spoke on the evil influence of the “United States and its infidel surrogates [who] were attempting to change the Somali people’s culture and sacred religion that God endowed them with.” Both Adan and Salad stressed that “the Somali people are Muslim and therefore want the introduction of the Sharia in the country.” The entire session was broadcast by Aidid’s radio.
Once the impact of the October 3 fighting became clear, the Islamists came up with a coherent position. Abdi Haji Gobdon, a spokesman for the SNA, declared that peace and stability could return to Mogadishu, and Somalia, only after the U.S.-U.N. forces had left the country. He urged the U.S.-U.N. forces not to abuse the goodwill of the Somalis, who recognized the humanitarian help they had received, by trying to interfere in Somalia’s domestic issues. He warned the U.S.-U.N. forces not to engage in a popular war they could not possibly win even if they tried to occupy all of Somalia. “What is honorable is that they go,” Gobdon stated. “They will not win the war. They came to help us. Let them leave and let the Somalis settle their political differences. There will be peace.”
Tehran endorsed this position because by now, with additional U.S. forces being rushed to swell their besieged compounds, the Islamists’ initial objectives had already been reached: “After eleven months of military presence and after confrontation with black independence-seeking forces, the world superpower has suffered heavy blows and damages.” According to Tehran, Washington should have realized by now that “the existing hopelessness of the situation” in Mogadishu could only be aggravated by the resolve of the “guerrilla forces and the Muslim masses.” Tehran concluded, “Deployment of political solutions after eleven months of military presence can only mean withdrawal. As a result, America is trapped in a desert where it can neither continue its actions nor revise earlier decisions.” As planned by Tehran and Khartoum, the Americans were already entrapped in a new Vietnam-type quagmire.
As of October 10, Aidid and the Islamists had embarked on a twin-track approach to the Somalian crisis. They reiterated their desire to maintain a cease-fire and take part in a political process while insisting that their basic demands of a prompt U.S.-U.N. withdrawal and preservation of the Islamic character of Somalia be met to avert the resumption of fighting. Simultaneously the flow of Islamist reinforcements and resupplies into Somalia and the Mogadishu area that had been organized by bin Laden continued. The Islamists made it clear that the Mogadishu cease-fire and the fighting were merely instruments aimed at ensuring that Islamist interests were realized.
On October 17 came early indications of an impending crisis in Mogadishu that could lead to the resumption of fighting. The Islamists reacted sharply to news of the imminent visit to Mogadishu of U.N. secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The Islamists considered Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian Copt, an implacable enemy and saw his involvement in the diplomatic process in Somalia as proof of the United Nations’ commitment to impose a solution favorable to the United States. (Copts are Egypt’s original Christian population, whose unique church dates centuries before the Arab-Muslim invasion of Egypt. Because of their refusal to accept Islam, the Copts are both hated and despised by the Islamists.) To reinforce the point, Aidid sent his followers to a massive demonstration in Mogadishu, where more than 1,000 of his people shouted, “Down with Boutros-Ghali! Down with UNOSOM [the acronym for the U.N. force in Somalia]!” “Boutros-Ghali has bombed us and murdered us—we don’t want him here!” an Aidid aide repeatedly screamed through a loudspeaker to the cheering crowd in the streets.
IN LATE OCTOBER 1993 it became clear that Tehran and its allies, emboldened by the great success of their earlier clashes with the U.S. forces, were getting ready for another marked escalation in the fighting in Mogadishu. Tehran and Khartoum hoped that this escalation, if implemented, would bring about a speedy and shameful withdrawal of the U.S.-U.N. forces from Somalia, much like that in Beirut a decade earlier. The comparison with Beirut was not just symbolic. Tehran now deployed to Mogadishu highly specialized HizbAllah detachments.
The overall plan for escalation was prepared in Tehran with the help of commanders of several Islamist terrorist movements, most notably the Lebanese HizbAllah and selected Arab “Afghans.” The new operational plan anticipated a marked escalation in the popular fighting in Mogadishu as a cover and facilitator for high-quality terrorist strikes by HizbAllah squads. Somali fighters had already been specifically prepared in training camps in central and northern Somalia. They were organized in recently established composite units made up of Somalis led by highly professional Iranian Pasdaran, Lebanese, HizbAllah, and Arab “Afghan” terrorists. These new commanders had been smuggled into Somalia in small detachments via Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, with active assistance from the Organization of Islamic Republics in Kenya, the Islamic Front for Ethiopia, and the Eritrean Islamic Jihad. This separate and delicate transfer of key terrorists was also managed by bin Laden.
Once chaos and street fighting returned to Mogadishu, the Islamist contingency plan stipulated, the elite terrorists would go into action, kidnapping Americans (civilians and soldiers) and then beginning suicide bombing attacks on several U.S.-U.N. facilities. HizbAllah suicide terrorist squads already in Mogadishu to hunt the U.S. forces would conduct the lethal suicide-bombing attacks against U.S. objectives. The senior HizbAllah commander on-site was Hajj Riyadh Asakir from Beirut. He was a veteran of the suicide bombings in Beirut in the early 1980s, including the bombing of the marine barracks. In Mogadishu, Asakir answered directly to Muhsin Rezai, then commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Tehran. To increase the likelihood of success, the HizbAllah also maintained in Mogadishu two main force groupings completely separated from each other. One HizbAllah force arrived via Ethiopia and the other via Kenya. Each force relied on a completely independent support system—made up of Somalis, Iranians, and Arab “Afghans”—and supply lines drawn via Ethiopia and Kenya, respectively. Tehran was convinced that these HizbAllah suicide strikes, if carried out, would have the same impact on Washington that the Beirut strikes of the early 1980s had had.
As it turned out, there was no need to activate the HizbAllah cells in Mogadishu. Shocked by the heavy casualties suffered in early October, Washington decided to withdraw from Somalia and severely curtailed the activities of the U.S. forces in Mogadishu. By March 1, 1994, the bulk of the U.S. forces were out of Somalia. The Islamists, including Aidid, were in control. Tehran and Khartoum had proved their point and demonstrated their ability to conduct strategic operations.
In fall 1994 the intense dynamics of the Horn of Africa was gradually giving way to a somewhat regulated chaos. From the ashes of the Horn of Africa rose several dangerous precedents. It was now clear that even when a distinct national group in Africa had decided to reach self-determination through secession, it still had to rely on colonial-era boundaries. The most striking example was Eritrea, which seceded from Ethiopia after a thirty-year guerrilla war and a referendum that demonstrated overwhelming popular support. Eritrea was legitimized not from a redrawing of colonial boundaries but from a return to them. Another group aspiring to follow the example set by Eritrea is Somaliland, which declared itself independent in 1991.
While central and southern Somalia has already sunk back into lawlessness and rampant violence worse than that before the U.S.-U.N. intervention, in Somaliland the self-declared government has established a working, albeit fragile, administration and peace. Like Eritrea, Somaliland had a separate colonial history, having merged with Somalia only in 1960. But the West has adamantly refused to recognize Somaliland’s independence.
In several interviews and statements, Osama bin Laden has said that he considers his experience in Somalia a milestone in his evolution. Somalia was the first time he was involved in a major undertaking at the leadership level, exposed to the complexities of decision making and policy formulation. He established working relations with the intelligence services of Iran and Iraq that would prove useful in his rise to the top. Although he did not actually take part in the fighting in Mogadishu, his contribution to the Islamist effort and ultimate victory was major and decisive. Bin Laden still defines the fighting in Mogadishu as one of his major triumphs against the United States.
The achievement against the United States in Somalia convinced him that it would be possible to ultimately evict the United States from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States as well. In March 1997 he stressed this point to Robert Fisk of the Independent: “We believe that God used our holy war in Afghanistan to destroy the Russian army and the Soviet Union … and now we ask God to use us one more time to do the same to America to make it a shadow of itself.” Bin Laden was convinced not only that Somalia was the answer to the Islamists’ prayers but also that the legacy of the fighting in Mogadishu indicated the character of future confrontations with the United States. “We also believe that our battle against America is much simpler than the war against the Soviet Union, because some of our mujahideen who fought here in Afghanistan also participated in operations against the Americans in Somalia—and they were surprised at the collapse of American morale. This convinced us that the Americans are a paper tiger,” bin Laden concluded.
Operational lessons from the conflict had more immediate ramifications. Khartoum and Tehran were now convinced of the effectiveness of their vast networks throughout East Africa. They were also cognizant of their ability to deliver painful political and strategic strikes against the United States even in such remote parts of the world as the Horn of Africa. Turabi and the Iranian and Sudanese senior officers were deeply impressed by the performance of the key Arab “Afghan” commanders, particularly Zawahiri and bin Laden. The personal relations established during this crisis would endure and prove highly useful in future confrontations with the United States. As for the three key “Afghans”—al-Zawahiri, bin Laden, and al-Rashidi—they forged a friendship and a team that had worked well together and soon would again.