Over the month following the unsuccessful June 17 attack on Aideed's compound in Mogadishu, the 1-22nd Infantry conducted several raids aimed at capturing the Somali warlord. Yet having been alerted that he was a wanted man, Aideed went underground. He reorganized his intelligence service, purging suspected double agents or using them to spread disinformation regarding his movements. He changed his location once or twice a night, masquerading as a sheikh, a woman, an old man, an Islamic mullah, or a hospital patient. He appeared on television, weary yet defiant, declaring: “I’m not concerned by the search being conducted now. They are trying to arrest me unjustly.”
As the tempo of the strategic manhunt intensified, Aideed and the SNA kept the military pressure up, increasing their sniping at UN forces. On July 2 Aideed’s men attacked an Italian checkpoint, killing three and wounding 24. Five days later six Somali UN employees died in an ambush. And on July 9, the SNA lobbed the first mortar rounds into the U.S. embassy compound that housed the American QRF.
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