Viking_Yearbook_94

Somalia Associated Press T he world was drawn to Somalia in 1992 by photographs of starving children. It was almost driven away the following year by photographs of fighting adults. The latter pictures, notably pf a captured American serviceman being dragged through the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, symbolized the difficulty a 33-country United Nations force had coping with a country that had descended into feudalism. Magadishu was a city divided,the northern sector held by warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed, and the south by rival, Mohamed Farah Aidld. Aidid and Ali Mahdi had united to overthrow dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, whom they forced into exile in 1991. But their ensuing contest for power led to a full-scale war over Mogadishu that killed 350,000 in fighting and exacerbated a famine. Aidid became the U.N.'s bete noir after he was suspected of ordering an attack on a group of Pakistani peacekeepers. U.N. forces launched a manhunf for Aidid, but halted ground patrols and all but essential military convoys in Mogadishu after an Oct. 3 battle left 18 Americans and more than 300 Somali's dead. The Big Picture 43