Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On

by Leigh Neville

  This appeared to be the consensus assessment of the September 25 shoot down. We did not correlate the Black Hawk loss and the number of RPGs available in Mogadishu. We did not view this event from the Somali perspective: successfully shooting down a helicopter with a RPG added a potential TTP [Tactics, Techniques, and Processes] to the SNA.57

  A SOCOM after-action report on the Gothic Serpent deployment recorded:

  During August and September 1993 TF Ranger conducted six missions into Mogadishu. These six missions were tactical successes, and the cumulative effect of these missions was to impair Aideed’s movement and to undermine his authority. In each case, the assault and blocking forces landed with no or only minimal opposition, seized their objectives, searched them, detained suspects, and departed the area. Although Aideed had eluded apprehension, his key lieutenants were vulnerable, and the capture of Osman Atto had proven TF Ranger’s capability to strike in the heart of the SNA stronghold.58

  Indeed, of the target list of Aideed and 49 of his Tier 1 clan members in the Habr Gidr, 26 had actually been captured during these first six operations – Task Force Ranger were rolling up the warlord’s network.

  Despite this, some within Task Force Ranger were becoming uneasy at what they saw as the increasing speed of the response from the Somali militia; they were getting faster and shooting was happening earlier on nearly every mission. “Somewhere around halfway through our deployment the Habr Gidr militia started to fire a lot of RPGs into the air and they are clearly taking shots at our helicopters but we always had this ‘big sky, little bullet’ theory,” recalled Ranger Sergeant Jeff Struecker.

  Gerry Izzo had seen the steady increase in ground fire from the air in Super 65:

  I was noticing the missions were getting hotter and hotter. Looking back, maybe I should have been a little more adamant about my misgivings but we were having success, mission after mission, at this point. Each mission that we did we would take a little more gunfire earlier and earlier and somewhere around the fourth or fifth mission I mentioned to [veteran 160th SOAR pilot of Super 61] Cliff Wolcott; “You know I think they’re catching onto what we’re doing.”

  Not that I was clairvoyant or anything but I just noticed they were getting a little bit more organized. I remember when I mentioned it to Cliff, and he was eating French C-rations, and he just looked at me and said “Well, I don’t know any other way to do this” so I acquiesced to his experience.

  Karl Maier added: “We could tell that the guys on the ground were getting smarter because we were doing the same thing over and over.”

  Colonel Boykin later wrote in his memoir that despite the increasing opposition from the militias he believed that they were getting closer to capturing Aideed through the systematic targeting of his key lieutenants:

  Did our risks go up with each operation? Yes, I personally felt our risks were going up as the enemy was figuring out how to stop us, but we always achieved surprise on the target. It did become a matter of concern over time, but I did not believe that our chances of success were going down. I believed they were increasing because we were destroying Aideed’s infrastructure, which should force him out into the open.59

  CHAPTER 3

  LUCY

  “There was debris and dust from every helicopter around us. You couldn’t see the building – the building was only at the edge of the rotors! As the bird lifted off you could already hear small-arms fire. On the other missions the fire didn’t start until the exfil and it was unusual that you would receive any fire early on. We were already exchanging fire before we got into the house.”

  Master Sergeant Norman “Norm” Hooten, F-Team, 2 Troop, C-Squadron

  After the success of the Atto capture operation, Task Force Ranger continued to “aggressively prosecute” the target list of Aideed’s lieutenants. On September 24, they came close to launching against Colonel Abdi Hassan Awale (otherwise known as Abdi Qeydid), a close Aideed aide and his Minister of the Interior. CIA intelligence indicted that Awale was intending to visit his favorite tea-house that day but the target was never confirmed by aerial surveillance and the mission was scrubbed.

  The CIA’s locally recruited surveillance teams hit the jackpot on the morning of October 3. The CIA had established Team Three led by a former SNA leader with a grudge to bear against Aideed and who was willing to sell him out for the right price. He arrived that morning at the CIA compound with startling news – Awale and Omar Salad Elmi, Aideed’s principal political adviser, were meeting that afternoon.

  The asset believed Aideed might even be at the meeting and there was a good chance other individuals from his inner circle could be present, making it a tempting target. Tommy Faust recalled: “A HUMINT source reported that Salad … was to attend a meeting at a specific house in the Habr Gedir section of town. The specific location was unknown but it was assessed to be close to the Olympic Hotel.”1 In fact, Salad had been sighted earlier that morning at an SNA rally at the Reviewing Stand on Via Lenin, north of the K-4 Traffic Circle, but had disappeared before Task Force Ranger could launch.

  The Olympic Hotel was a famous local landmark on one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Hawlwadig Road, which ran north to south past the Olympic. It was located near to the notorious Bakara Market to the northwest. The Bakara Market and surrounding streets were central Habr Gidr territory. This was the area that the multinational forces had refused to enter again after the abortive raid on Aideed’s headquarters compound on June 17.

  Any incursion would likely result in large numbers of SNA militias opposing the operation. Adding to the potential difficulties was the Sheik Aden Adere Compound just to the east of the Bakara that served as a logistics base for jihadists. The J-2 Cell had received intelligence that some 200 foreign jihadists, mostly from Sudan, had arrived a week earlier and would likely reinforce the SNA from the Compound.

  Bill Garrison was aware of the dangerous nature of the Bakara Market: “If we go into the vicinity of the Bakara Market, there’s no question we’ll win the gunfight. But we might lose the war,” he noted in a memo.2 Tommy Faust agreed: “A direct action mission near the Olympic Hotel and surrounding area was the Mogadishu equivalent of bombing downtown Hanoi in daylight during the Viet Nam War.”3

  Garrison estimated that his units had perhaps 30 minutes in which to accomplish their mission and exfiltrate before the SNA began to respond in significant numbers. Any longer and Task Force Ranger ran the very real risk of being swarmed: “I knew that the closer we got to the Bakara Market, the faster we had to get in and get out. The bad guys’ reaction time was well known.”4

  Tom DiTomasso confirmed that the reputation of the Bakara was known even amongst the Rangers: “The target was east of the Bakara Market which we knew was really bad.”5 Delta Captain Scott Miller recalled: “3 October was a Sunday, which was traditionally a down day for the task force. The idea was a quick in, secure the target, then quick out.”6

  1459 HOURS: SOURCE CONFIRMED ON TARGET. RECCE [RECONNAISSANCE HELICOPTERS] MANEUVERING TO PROVIDE VIDEO OF BOTH SIDES OF BUILDING. RECCE ADVISES THIS AREA HAS REPORTED NUMEROUS SMALL-ARMS FIRE IN RECENT PAST. AIRCREWS/GROUND FORCES BRIEF MISSION.*

  The plan was relatively straightforward. The CIA source was to drive his vehicle to the site of the meeting and park outside. He would then open the hood (bonnet) of his car in a prearranged signal for the Task Force Ranger helicopters and spy plane observing high above to confirm the exact target building for the assault force.

  The source was becoming increasingly nervous about the numbers of SNA gunmen around the building and stopped short until, after a number of false starts, he was finally convinced by his handlers to stop outside the correct building. The large numbers of gunmen also indicated that at least some high-value targets were likely present at the location but how many was still unknown. The source quickly exited his vehicle and gave the prearranged signal. The surveillance helicopters confirmed the signal and added that they could see Omar Salad Elmi’s
yellow Volkswagen parked inside the compound.

  Another daylight mission was risky but the target was both time-sensitive and of enough importance to outweigh Task Force Ranger’s natural reluctance to operate in the daytime. Norm Hooten, team leader of F-Team, explained: “The mission that day was to capture key leaders of his executive staff. We had all of his executive staff at one meeting which was very rare. Usually you get one or two but to have [maybe] 10–12 key leaders in one spot … was just something we couldn’t turn down.”7

  Super 64 pilot Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mike Durant said:

  We could tell this was not going to be quite as straightforward as any of the others. The city was dangerous at any time, and this was in a particularly bad part of town. It was also daytime, and we couldn’t land the Black Hawks anywhere close to the target. So we knew there were some intricacies to this one that were going to make it more of a challenge.8

  A mission to capture Salad and Awale was finally launched. “We got spun-up three times already that day so we were getting tired of it: ‘when’s this thing going to happen?’ So we were up and down all day and we were napping [that afternoon] when all of a sudden ‘let’s go, we’re going’,” explained Paul Leonard.

  The Rangers were playing volleyball whilst one squad had been dispatched on the regular “water run” to pick up fresh water for the Task Force Ranger base. The aircrews of the Black Hawks were due to conduct some training with their Direct Action Penetrator variant, an armed gunship kit that could be bolted onto a standard MH-60L. “We were in fact planning a range event to go shoot the DAPs when the October 3 mission unfolded,” said Mike Durant. Ranger First Sergeant Glenn Harris emerged from the JOC to advise the Rangers of the upcoming mission, shouting “Get it on!”

  At around 14:30, the Delta team leaders, Ranger chalk leaders and the aircrews convened for a quick orders group to explain Bill Garrison’s concept of operations. Using the Building Assault template, Delta would insert on the roads directly outside the target building using a combination of MH-6 Little Birds and MH-60 Black Hawks. If the Little Birds could land they would, otherwise the teams would fast-rope in. The larger Black Hawks had no room to land and thus their assigned operators would be forced to deploy by fast-ropes. The assaulters would then breach into the objective and, after overcoming any resistance, detain and round up all suspect personnel.

  Whilst the operators were storming the objective, the following four Black Hawks would hover over each corner of the block in which the target building was located and fast-rope in their cargo of Ranger chalks. Tom DiTomasso recalled:

  The initial assault came in with four Little Birds and two Black Hawks who brought in the primary assault force and then probably 20 seconds later the four Black Hawks come in at all four corners of the intersection, near simultaneously, to drop off the blocking positions, their job was to contain the enemy from running away from the target area and to isolate the target area from external influences – two different things: keep people in and keep people out.

  At approximately 15:23, the commander gave the order to execute the mission. The chalk leaders quickly briefed their team leaders as they loaded the helicopters. Everyone was very sharp by this time and knew exactly what we had to do on the ground [because of their experience on previous missions]. As I passed around the diagram of the objective for the Rangers to study, I discussed with the pilots exactly where we needed to be inserted.

  The Ranger chalks were then briefed by their squad and platoon leaders. The Ranger leadership had each received an 8"x10" black and white aerial photograph taken by a surveillance aircraft over the target location. On the photo were marked the location of the target, their insertion points, and their intended blocking positions, all using the Olympic Hotel as a landmark. Matt Eversmann confirmed: “All the reference points for me were structures, I didn’t know the street names.”

  The objective itself was one block north of the distinctive five-story Olympic Hotel. Facing onto Hawlwadig Road, the L-shaped target building had two floors at the front facing the road, and three at the rear with a small attached courtyard typical of most Somali structures to the south. The entire block in which the target building nestled was surrounded by an 8- to 10-foot-high stone wall. A gate led into the courtyard in an alley running west to east along the short end of the L.

  The Rangers were advised that this would be a fast-rope insertion, meaning that two braided ropes would be dropped from either side of the Black Hawks once they were over their assigned insertion points. The Rangers, using heavy gloves to protect their hands from the friction, would then slide down the ropes to the ground. Fast-roping was only used if a suitable landing zone for the helicopters could not be identified.

  Mogadishu was full of dangers that made such a landing difficult, chief amongst them an array of electricity wires strung up in a haphazard fashion on nearly every street. These and the incredible amounts of debris on the ground made fast roping the only option in many cases. A typical urban fast-rope was 20 to 30 feet in height but on this occasion, due to the amount of wires and telegraph poles in the target area, some of the Rangers would be fast-roping from between 40 and 60 feet in height as the helicopters simply could not safely descend any lower, the longest fast ropes they had yet encountered in Mogadishu.

  It took a considerable amount of practice to find the optimum placement for every Ranger in relation to the fast ropes that were bolted to the center of the helicopter’s rear cargo bay. The bench seats and the usual long-range fuel tanks had been removed from the Black Hawks to fit all of the Rangers and their equipment in. Even with the seats and tanks gone it was a tight fit. The Rangers needed to ensure that the fast-rope process was completed as efficiently as possible to minimize the period of time their Black Hawk spent hovering exposed over the city. The big helicopters were “bullet magnets,” as one 160th SOAR aviator explained, and their greatest defense was their ability to get in and out quickly.

  The Ranger squads were divided up into chalks typically composed of elements of two rifle squads along with an attached machine-gun team with a senior NCO or platoon leader as commander. There were four such chalks assigned to the October 3 mission drawn from the 1st and 2nd platoons of Bravo Company. Chalks 1 and 3 were from Lieutenant Larry Perino’s 1st Platoon whilst chalks 2 and 4 were from Lieutenant Tom DiTomasso’s 2nd Platoon.

  Each chalk was supported by a Radio Telephone Operator (RTO) to provide communications and a Fire Support Officer (FSO), or Forward Observer (FO), to manage close air support from the AH-6s and sniper Black Hawks orbiting overhead. Each chalk also included a designated medic or at the very least a Ranger trained in advanced combat lifesaver techniques. In total, each chalk numbered between 12 and 15 Rangers dependent on how under-strength the squads were; one of the rifle squads assigned to Chalk 3, for example, was only five men strong to begin with.

  Chalk 4 under Sergeant Matt Eversmann is a good illustrative example of the structure of the chalks. He recalled: “I was normally in charge of a Ranger squad of nine people but on this day, however, I was in charge of 13 Rangers, a composite of soldiers assigned to one aircraft. James Telscher and Casey Joyce were my two team leaders, young sergeants, both E5s.”

  He had the two senior Rangers as fire team leaders, Sergeants Jim Telscher and Casey Joyce; a two-man M60 machine-gun team in the form of Specialist Kevin Snodgrass and Private First Class Todd Blackburn; a pair of SAW gunners, Specialists Dave Diemer and Adalberto Rodriguez; and a pair of grenadiers, Privates First Class Marcus Good and Anton Berendsen. Completing the chalk were Eversmann’s RTO Specialist Jason Moore and his FO, Staff Sergeant Jeff McLaughlin.

  Along with his role as a grenadier, Private First Class Marcus Good served as the chalk medic. Eversmann explained:

  Marc Good was an infantryman, a young Private First Class, who had been trained as an EMT [emergency medical technician] through the Army, he’d done the Advanced Lifesaving Course prior to deployment so that our platoon medic
was with Tom DiTomasso. Marc Good was our assigned medic on Chalk 4 even though by trade he was an infantry guy. He did an incredible job.

  The principal firepower of each of these chalks lay with their single 7.62mm M60 medium machine gun and their two 5.56mm M249 squad automatic weapons or SAWs. Supplementing the incredible suppressive fire of the M60 and SAWs were two M203 single-shot grenade launchers that could deliver 40mm high-explosive projectiles out to some 400 meters. These M203s were mounted under the barrel of the standard 5.56mm M16A2 assault rifle. Every other Ranger was issued with either the M16A2 rifle or a carbine version known as the CAR15. Along with fragmentation and smoke hand grenades, each Ranger also carried flashbang stun grenades and non-lethal Stinger riot grenades filled with plastic pellets to disperse civilian mobs.

  Each chalk had a geographic responsibility around the objective. Chalk 1 was under the command of Lieutenant Perino and was tasked with the southeastern blocking position. Captain Mike Steele and his company command element were also attached to Perino’s Chalk 1. Chalk 2 under Lieutenant DiTomasso would manage the northeast corner whilst Sergeant Tim Watson’s Chalk 3 was diagonally opposite DiTomasso at the southwest, directly outside the target building. Sergeant Eversmann’s Chalk 4 completed the square at the northwest corner on Hawlwadig Road.

  Once the Rangers had deployed via the fast ropes, the plan called for the Black Hawks to leave the immediate vicinity and fly holding patterns several kilometers away in case they were required. “Air extraction was not the primary plan this day so we were a contingency asset at that point which included possible extraction by air as a backup,” explained Mike Durant. Flight lead for the MH-6 Little Birds, Karl Maier, confirmed that his crews were also ready for such a contingency: “We could’ve picked them up off the roof, it wouldn’t have been a problem – that’s one of the things the Little Bird is really great for.”