WE ARRIVED HOME ON OCTOBER 24TH, 1993. Ten days later, Rob Marsh walked into my office, leaning on a cane. The Task Force Delta medical team had medevaced him to the UN compound and then to Germany, where he’d undergone extensive surgeries. The doctors did a miraculous job on Rob: through them, God gave him a second chance at life.
Within weeks of our return, Aidid would attend new U.S.-brokered peace negotiations, and the UN would release every man Task Force Ranger captured. In June 1995, Aidid would declare himself President of Somalia, but continue to fight for control with rival clans. On August 2, 1996, he would die of gunshot wounds sustained a week earlier in a fight with competing factions. Word was, Osman Atto was involved in his death.
On December 2, 1993, my guys in Bogota called me on my secure telephone at Bragg. “Sir, we wanted to report to you that Pablo Escobar was killed this morning.” It had been just under seventeen months after his escape from “prison.”
Excitement surged through me. I needed some good news. “Tell me what happened,” I said.
“You know the SIGINT equipment we provided to the Colombians? They were out running a patrol in Escobar’s mother’s neighborhood, when Hugo Martinez’s son tracked a signal to Escobar’s safe house. Hugo, Jr. drove by and saw Escobar standing by a window. Saw him!”
Our trainers back at Medellin had helped the Colombians launch a quick op. A Search Bloc strike team went in, busted down Escobar’s door, chased him out onto a rooftop and killed him: one shot in the butt, and one in each temple.
I called Garrison. “They got Pablo this morning. It’s been a long haul, but it was worth it.”
“That’s good news,” Garrison said. “Congratulations on the good work.”
“Well, thank you, but the Colombians did it,” I said. “We helped them a lot, but they did it.”
Afterward, there was a lot of talk about the headshots. As with Waco, shadowy Delta rumors surfaced again. Even today, people still want to know whether Delta snipers were in on the kill.
I can answer that: no.
The official report from the Colombians was that Escobar was caught in a cross-fire. But that’s a fairly miraculous story given the straight-on nature of the headshot wounds. I’d say it’s more likely the Colombians downed him with a shot in the ass, then walked up and put a coup de grace bullet in each side of his head. There you go, Pablo, payback for two decades of murder.