ene. The United Nations, having taken responsibility for the American-led intervention, naturally preferred to have a government to which it could hand over authority. And so the international agency got into the ''nation-building'' business, seeking to reconcile Somalia's faction leaders to a power-sharing arrangement. But Mohammed Farah Aidid, whose Habr Gidr clan militia had been the main player in the dictator's overthrow, was not interested in sharing power. He believed he had earned the right to rule the country. In August 1993 President Bill Clinton granted Commander Howe's request for an elite American force to help capture Aidid, sending 450 commandos, most of them Army Rangers, to Mogadishu. The Rangers soon became the new focus of local hatred. Their powerful Black Hawk helicopters whipped the roofs off whole neighborhoods with the force of their rotor wash even, according to Bowden, tearing infants from the arms of their mothers. Under pressure to find Aidid swiftly, the Rangers, forced to rely on poor intelligence, floundered at first. But then they seemed to make progress, arresting some of Aidid's lieutenants in lightning raids It was one of those raids, launched on Oct. 3, which became the Battle of the Black Sea. The targets were two of Aidid's senior advisers, reported to be in a house in the Black Sea neighborhood, a Habr Gidr stronghold. The Rangers, led by small units of highly specialized and trained soldiers known as Delta Force operators, went in by helicopter. The plan was to leave by ground convoy. The operation was supposed to take 30 to 40 minutes. Things began to go wrong immediately. A Ranger fell 70 feet out of a helicopter. Ground fire was unexpectedly intense. Then one of the Black Hawks was shot down by a well-aimed rocket-propelled grenade. This act is what led to a long draw out battle as the soldiers when to the aid of the fallen pilots, have a strict leave no one behind policy. ...
