WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has deployed uniformed trainers and advisers to Somalia for the first time since 1993, when two helicopters were shot down and 18 Americans were killed in the “Black Hawk Down” operation.
A cell of U.S. military personnel has been stationed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu since last fall to advise and coordinate operations with African troops fighting to wrest control of the country from the al-Shabab militia, an Islamist group whose leaders have professed loyalty to al-Qaeda, according to three U.S. military officials.
The deployment of fewer than two-dozen troops reverses two decades of U.S. policy that effectively prohibited military “boots on the ground” in Somalia.
In a statement late Friday, Army Col. Thomas Davis, a spokesman for the Africa Command, confirmed the deployment. He said a military coordination cell was established in Somalia in October.
October also marked the 20th anniversary of the Black Hawk Down battle between a task force of U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos, and fighters loyal to a Somali warlord.
