Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden Read Free Book Online Page A

from there. The Americans were shooting as soon as they hit
     the ground, shooting at everything. There were also Somalis shooting at them. These
     soldiers, Ali knew, were different from the ones who had come to feed Somalia. These were
     Rangers. They were cruel men who wore body armor and strapped their weapons to their
     chests and when they came at night they painted their faces to look fierce. Farther up
     Hawlwadig, to his left about two blocks over, another group of Rangers were in pitched
     battle. He saw two of them drag another who looked dead out of the street.
    The Rangers across the street entered a courtyard there and were shooting out. Then a
     helicopter came down low and blasted streams of fire from a gun on its side. The gun just
     pulverized his side of the street. Ali's youngest brother, Abdulahi Hassan Mohamed, fell
     dead by the gate to the family's house, bleeding from the head. Abdulahi was fifteen. Ali
     saw it happen. Then the Rangers ran out of the courtyard and across Hawlwadig toward the
     house of Hobdurahman Yusef Galle, where most of the other soldiers were.
    Ali ran. He stopped to see his brother and saw his head broken open like a melon. Then he
     took off as fast as he could. He ran to his left, down the street away from the Rangers
     and the house they were attacking. At the end of the dirt alley he turned left and ran
     behind the Olympic Hotel. The streets were crowded with screaming women and children.
     People were scrambling everywhere, racing around dead people and dead animals. Some who
     were running went toward the fight and others ran away from it. Some did not seem to know
     which way to go. He saw a woman running naked, waving her arms and screaming. Above was
     the din of the helicopters and all around the crisp popping of gunfire.
    Out in the streets there were already Aidid militiamen with megaphones shouting,
     “Kasoobaxa guryaha oo iska celsa cadowga!” (“Come out and defend your homes!”)
    Ali was not a fighter. There were gunmen, they called them mooryan, who lived for rice
     and khat and belonged to the private armies of rich men. Ali was just a strident and
     part-time shopkeeper who joined the neighborhood militia to protect its shops from the
     mooryan. But these Rangers were invading his home and had just killed his brother. He ran
     with rage and terror behind the hotel and then turning left again, back across Hawlwadig
     Road to the house of his friend Ahmed, where his AK-47 was hidden. Once he had retrieved
     the gun he met up with several of his friends. They ran back behind the Olympic Hotel,
     through all the Chaos. Ali told them about his brother and led them back to his house and
     shop, determined to exact revenge.
    Hiding behind a wall behind the hotel, they fired their first shots at the Rangers on the
     corner. Then they moved north, ducking behind cars and buildings. All would jump out and
     spray bullets toward the Rangers, then run for cover. Then one of his friends would do the
     same. Sometimes they just pushed the barrels of their guns around the corners and sprayed
     bullets without looking. None of them was an experienced fighter.
    The Rangers were better shots. Ali's friend, Adan Warsawe stepped out to shoot and was
     hit in the stomach by a Ranger bullet that knocked him fiat on his back. Ali and another
     friend risked the shooting to drag Adan to cover. The bullet had punched a hole in Adan's
     gut and made a gaping wound out his back that had sprayed blood on the dirt. When they
     dragged him it left a smear of blood on the street. Adan looked both alive and dead, as
     though he were someplace in between.
    Ali moved on to the next street, leaving Adan with two friends. He would shoot a Ranger
     or die trying. Why were they doing this? Who were these Americans who came to his
     neighborhood spraying bullets and spreading death?
    -5-
    After bursting into the storehouse off Hawlwadig, Sergeant Paul