5/15/2023 0 Comments Warlords call to arms app![]() ![]() “I wish we could all walk around more freely in this city, but I am still confident we will prevail in this situation,” added the former deputy national security adviser to former President George Bush, who experienced hare-and-hound hunts on foreign soil while working on the two-year mission to bring Panamanian strongman Manuel A. ![]() “We know, with Aidid, it’s taking too long, and I wish it weren’t,” said Howe, at 57 one of the youngest and most highly decorated senior officers in U.S. “Yes, we were calling it, ‘The Hunt for Elvis,’ for a while, and we’re still calling it” that, Howe said.īut he shifted to a more serious tone to answer critics and to explain why Aidid has been able to hold the United Nations at bay for so many weeks. When he publicly ordered Aidid’s arrest on July 17, the admiral said he figured there would be as many sightings of the warlord as there have been of Elvis Presley. efforts to save Somalia.Įven Howe has taken a light tack in describing the hunt for Aidid. Just how he and his small force-no more than 200 militiamen with small arms and mortars-have evaded a modern, multinational army is a tale that would be almost comic were it not for its grave implications for the future of U.N. ![]() military command would prefer to see successful political efforts to persuade elders of Aidid’s clan to isolate and neutralize him and his sub-clan.Īidid, however, has proven difficult to ignore. Privately, officials within the multinational coalition confirm that many in the U.N. Their fears were fed by a series of U.S.-led air strikes on select Aidid compounds and arsenals during the two-month hunt the military actions escalated the conflict with Somalis, left dozens dead and Aidid apparently no closer to capture. force here want to make his capture a lower priority, worrying that there may be more fatalities among peacekeeping troops or Somali civilians and concerned about the prospect of an escalation of street battles after a potential commando raid on an Aidid safehouse. There are growing signs that some military commanders of the U.N. Meantime, criticism is mounting in Somalia and in the capitals of some of the 28 nations participating in the peacekeeping operation that Howe’s hunt for Aidid is fast becoming a personal obsession. The thus-far unsuccessful pursuit of him, many Somalis say, adds daily to the warlord’s emerging status as a folk legend. troops with tanks, armored personnel carriers and a fleet of reconnaissance and attack helicopters.Īidid reportedly is moving from house to house in Mogadishu and continuing to orchestrate increasingly bloody guerrilla combat, costing the United Nations millions of dollars. There’s just one problem: This week, Howe’s hunt has entered its third month, and Aidid, still, has managed to elude some of the world’s most sophisticated military hardware and-in Mogadishu alone-more than 13,000 U.N. Howe has saturated the city with “wanted” posters and has presided over what he calls a sophisticated, systematic strategy to employ political and military operations to neutralize, isolate and corner a man once viewed by many Somalis as a national hero. Howe-who as Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s special representative commands the United Nations’ $1.5-billion mission to pacify and rebuild Somalia-has offered a $25,000 reward for Aidid’s capture. ![]() battle injuries and almost nightly mortar and machine-gun guerrilla attacks on U.N. Aidid’s campaign, the admiral asserts, also is responsible for scores more U.N. Jonathan Howe, Aidid is a “vicious individual” who on June 5 declared war on the United Nations in what has become “a well-orchestrated terrorist campaign” that has claimed the lives of two dozen Pakistani peacekeepers and four U.S. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |