Fall of Mogadishu

The Fall of Mogadishu was a major episode of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. It occurred on 28 December 2006, when the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) entered the capital in support of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), following the withdrawal of Islamic Courts Union (ICU) troops deployed in southern and central Somalia. The ICU had governed Mogadishu since June 2006, becoming the first authority since 1991 to place the city under a single administration.

After a week of fighting ENDF/TFG forces in conventional warfare elsewhere in the country, the ICU withdrew from Mogadishu on 27 December without resisting inside the city, and Ethiopian troops subsequently marched into the capital on 28 December.

The city’s capture marked the opening of an Ethiopian military occupation in Mogadishu and the beginning of a rapidly expanding Islamist insurgency. In the period that followed, Mogadishu was effectively split between areas held by ENDF/TFG forces and districts dominated by emerging resistance networks.

The security situation deteriorated soon after the fall of the capital, and warlords disposed by the ICU began to reassert influence amid the new occupation-era power vacuum.