On 3rd October 1993, amid the ongoing Somali Civil War, American forces of Task Force Ranger received a tipoff on the location of a meeting of Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s Somali National Alliance in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Americans hoped to capture two of Aidid's advisors to get closer to capturing Aidid himself.

Due to an earlier attack on and rescue of US Marines in another part of Mogadishu, Aidid's forces are put on alert and they were prepared to protect the meeting with small arms and RPGs.

The shooting begins as soon as the US helicopters arrived outside the building where the meeting was taking place. Things quickly go wrong for the troops of Task Force Ranger and these American forces engaged in their largest sustained firefight they have fought in since the Vietnam War.

Thanks to:

• Dr. Jonathan Carroll, Associate Professor of Military History and Modern War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the author of Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-building and Insurgency in Somalia, 1992-1995.

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