[Imc] "Ambush in Mogadishu" 9pm tonight

[Kranich, Kimberlie]

In an effort to better understand US foreign policy and its effects, PBS's
"Frontline" has been producing a series of timely documentaries and WILL-TV
has been airing them. Tonight's episode is at 9 and is described below:
"Ambush in Mogadishu" tells the story of the most violent U.S. combat
firefight since Vietnam. On October 3, 1993 elite units of the U.S. Army's
Rangers <../rangers/> and Delta Force were ambushed by Somali men, women and
children armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades
<../weapons/rpg.html>. The Rangers were pinned down in the most dangerous
part of Mogadishu, Somalia and taking casualties. What had started out as an
operation to capture warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid--turned into a tragic
firefight <../firefight/> that lasted seventeen hours, left eighteen
Americans dead, eighty four wounded and continues to haunt the U.S. military
and American foreign policy. 
The report tracks what led up to the crisis. US officials and Somalis
<../interviews/> describe the famine, civil war, and the escalating
hostilities between UN/U.S. peacekeeping forces and Aidid. "Ambush in
Mogadishu" also probes the muddled U.S. military and diplomatic policy on
Somalia, and Washington's failure to coordinate with U.S. military on the
ground. 
But the most gripping part of the tale is the harrowing descriptions of the
firefight that trapped the US Rangers <../rangers/> as they moved into a
maze of alleys in Mogadishu to save a downed Blackhawk. The Rangers - some
in their late teens or early twenties at the time - paint extraordinarily
vivid word pictures of the intense and bloody battle which also killed 350
to 1,000 Somalis. And US military commanders <../interviews/> describe the
rescue operation which also came under intense gunfire. 
The 'battle of Mogadishu'- a planned 90-minute mission which turned into a
deadly 17 hours - is generally forgotten by most Americans. But five years
later, it continues to cast a long shadow on US military thinking and
decision making about humanitarian/peacekeeping operations. Its legacy, says
many experts <../readings/>, was a continuing U.S. reluctance to be drawn
into other trouble spots such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Haiti during the 1990s.