Mogadishu Today (with Photos & Video)

Mogadishu is the capital of the African country of Somalia, besieged by a civil war since 1991.

Mgoadishu Situated on the Indian Ocean, Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is a historic center of trade, commerce, and culture in the region. Mogadishu was under African and Arabic control until Italy and the UK colonized Somalia in the late 19th century. Mogadishu was established as the capital of Somalia when the country claimed its independence in 1960.

Somalia joined the Arab League in 1974, a regional confederation of Middle Eastern states, but political turmoil, assassinations, and Soviet influence eventually led to governmental collapse in the 1980s and a civil war in 1991. The United Nations sent a peacekeeping mission to restore order, and in 1992, the US military entered Somalia to attempt humanitarian aid.

Mogadishu Film: Lufthansa Flight 181 was a Boeing 737-230C jetliner (reg. D-ABCE) named the Landshut that was hijacked on the afternoon of 13 October 1977 by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who called themselves Commando Martyr Halima.

The objective of the hijacking was to secure the release of imprisoned Red Army Factionleaders in German prisons. In the early hours of 18 October, just after midnight, the aircraft was stormed by the West German counter-terrorism group GSG 9 in Mogadishu, Somalia, with 90 passengers rescued. The rescue operation was codenamed Feuerzauber (German term for "Fire Spell"). The hijacking is considered to be part of the German Autumn.

Prior to thecivil war, Mogadishu was known as the White pearl of the Indian Ocean, after civil war, the Battle of Mogadishu"Day of the Rangers"'), also known as the Black Hawk Down, Oct 3, 1993 – Oct 4, 1993.

In 1993, two Black Hawk US military helicopters were shot down by Somali militants over Mogadishu, and the mission to retrieve the pilots resulted in the deaths of several hundred Somali militia members and civilians as well as 18 Americans. The conflict is called the Battle of Mogadishu, more commonly known as Black Hawk Down, from the title of a book (1999) and film (2001) on the subject.

The Somali Civil War is an ongoing civil war taking place in Somalia. It grew out of resistance to the military junta led by Siad Barre during the 1980s. By 1988–1990, the Somali Armed Forces began engaging various armed rebel groups, including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in the northeast, the Somali National Movement in the northwest, and the United Somali Congress in the south.

The clan-based armed opposition groups eventually managed to overthrow the Barre government in 1991.

Mogadishu the beautiful - your white-turbaned mosques, baskets of anchovies as bright as mercury, jazz and shuffling feet, bird-boned servant girls with slow smiles, the blind white of your homes against the sapphire blue of the ocean - you are missed, her dreams seem to say - Nadifa Mohamed,The Orchard of Lost Souls