The
State Department sent two consuls to Mogadishu in 1956 to establish a diplomatic post and on July 1, 1957, the United States
Consulate-General in
Mogadishu opened. The consulate was an offshoot of the US embassy to Italy. At the time, Mogadishu was the capital of the
Trust Territory of Somalia, a
United Nations Trust Territory under Italian administration that was scheduled to become independent in 1960. In addition to establishing a presence, the consulate staff were also charged with political research and developing relations with future Somali leaders. On July 1, 1960, the Trust Territory of Somalia (the former
Italian Somaliland) became independent and united, as planned, with the briefly extant
State of Somaliland (the former
British Somaliland) to form the
Somali Republic (Somalia). The United States recognized and established diplomatic relations with the Somali Republic the same day. The consulate-general was elevated to embassy status and its
chargé d'affaires, Andrew G. Lynch, was appointed ambassador on July 5. He presented his
credentials on 11 July, at which point he
officially became the first
US ambassador to Somalia. Like most US diplomatic posts in Africa during the
Cold War, a primary purpose of the embassy was to counter Soviet influence in the region and contain the spread of
communism. For a time after the
Sino-Soviet split,
China was also
actively competing for influence in the developing world, including activities in Somalia and the many other parts of the world. Beginning in the 1960s, the US engaged in development projects in Somalia to counter the influence of communism. Staff from the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which carried out most of these projects, comprised a substantial number of the embassy's staff during the next three decades. Educational programs were also given emphasis by the embassy in the years after independence, and there was a sizable
Peace Corps presence. The US became the
protecting power for the United Kingdom in Somalia after Somalia severed
diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom in 1963, due to a dispute over the administration of the ethnic-Somali
Northern Frontier District. Besides providing consular assistance for Britons, the embassy was also tasked with the protection of the British embassy compound and its properties. The US opened a consulate in
Hargeisa the following year to assist Peace Corps activities and represent British interests in the northwestern region of Somalia, which had been under British administration from 1884 to 1960. In 1967, the embassy went into a lock down during the
Six-Day War between Israel and neighboring Arab countries, which Somalia supported. The US was viewed as Israel's protector by Somalis and the embassy was subjected to some minor demonstrations of protesting. During the 1969 ''
coup d'état'' which brought
Siad Barre to power, the embassy was blockaded by soldiers, who prevented the movement of persons into or out of the compound for over 24 hours. Only the ambassador managed to briefly visit the embassy en route to the Foreign Ministry, where he made a formal complaint against the embassy's blockade. In the wake of the coup, the Somali government became patrons of the Soviet Union and China. Three days after the coup, the Peace Corps was ordered to leave within three days. This soon extended to one week, and many of the volunteers were housed in the homes of embassy staff before being evacuated by a US Air Force plane. The
Foreign Assistance Act prohibited foreign assistance to nations whose ships engaged in trade with Vietnam. After Somali-flagged vessels were observed at port in
Hanoi, US
development assistance to Somalia was terminated. The Barre government responded by expelling the US military attaché, prohibiting local residents from visiting the embassy, and restricting travel by embassy staff to within of Mogadishu. The consulate in Hargeisa was closed and the USAID program, which had more staff than the rest of the embassy, ended. However, in the late 1970s, the Soviets became patrons of Ethiopia and in the wake of the
Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia, Somalia turned to the West for support. The US sought access to airports and ports in Somalia in exchange for military equipment and economic aid. In July 1989, the embassy moved to a new, compound on the outskirts of Mogadishu—the largest US embassy in Sub-Saharan Africa. The site had been acquired by the US in the mid-1960s and later turned into a golf course that was frequented by embassy staff.
Prelude to closure In the late 1980s, there was
increasing rebellion against the rule of President Siad Barre and by 1990, the country began to descend into civil war. Criminal violence was also increasing all over Somalia. In 1990, seasoned diplomat
James K. Bishop was appointed US Ambassador to Somalia. In 1967, Bishop was at the US Embassy in
Beirut,
Lebanon when the
Six-Day War erupted, which prompted the evacuation of about 3,600 Americans in 33 hours; Bishop was one of 26 diplomats and Marines that remained in the city during the conflict. Ambassador Bishop also gained valuable experience organizing evacuations of several embassies in the 1980s while serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. In his previous post, as US ambassador to
Liberia, Bishop was overseeing the voluntary evacuation of embassy staff and civilians as
a civil war in Liberia spread, when he left in March 1990. Ambassador Bishop returned to Washington to prepare for his new appointment to Somalia, but he was soon appointed to a taskforce to deal with the crisis in Liberia, which included a gradual evacuation of American civilians and a rapid closure of the embassy in August. Aware of the violence going on in the Somali countryside, Ambassador Bishop felt "the odds were better than even that we would have to leave Mogadishu under less than favorable circumstances." On August 1, Ambassador Bishop visited
United States Central Command—the military command for the Middle East and Northeast Africa—where he worked with military experts to review the embassy's Emergencies and Evacuation (E&E) plan until he was "satisfied...that [Central Command] realized that it might have to conduct an evacuation from Mogadishu and was prepared to do that." A few hours after his visit,
Iraq invaded Kuwait. The US was mobilizing assets for
a response when Ambassador Bishop arrived in Mogadishu on September 6. The primary interest of the Ambassador was to maintain the US military's permission and access to airfields and ports in Mogadishu and
Berbera, which the US had negotiated in 1979. This was especially important given the mobilization for intervention in Kuwait, Somalia's strategic location near the
Arabian Peninsula and the mouth of the
Red Sea, and because
Saudi Arabia would not allow US troops on their soil. The embassy was also home to a large number of USAID staff, although the spread of unrest into the countryside was making their work increasingly difficult. The Somali Civil War spread through the country during 1990 and late in the year there was an increasing level of criminal violence in Mogadishu. By December, the security situation began to deteriorate significantly and on December 5, Ambassador Bishop told an audience at a standing-room only meeting that he was recommending the voluntary evacuation of all dependents (i.e. children and spouses of diplomatic staff) and non-essential personnel. By December 19, the number of official US personnel in the city was reduced from 147 to 37 and of the 90 private Americans in the city, half were estimated to have left. Small-arms fire became a daily occurrence and stray bullets and shells were landing in the embassy complex. On December 30, violence escalated significantly as rebel groups entered the city, although the ambassador claimed the nature and extent of the violence was not immediately clear. On December 30–31, diplomats, including many stationed in offices elsewhere in the city, were collected and housed in the ambassador's residence, the marine house, and the K-7 compound located across Afgoy Road. On the morning of December 31, the defense attaché was nearly killed when his vehicle was sprayed with bullets and that evening, a soldier at a roadblock shot the tires of a vehicle carrying another defense official. Attempts by the US and other nations' diplomats, in particular the Italian embassy, to negotiate a ceasefire for foreigners to leave were unsuccessful. Afgoy Road became a "shooting gallery," preventing those in safe-havens outside the embassy to reach it. On New Year's Day, the first American civilians began to seek refuge at the embassy.
Closure and evacuation Ambassador Bishop requested an evacuation of the American community on January 1, 1991, indicating that the evacuation could be with the planned Italian, French, or German evacuation efforts, but that he preferred a
U.S. Department of Defense evacuation. The State Department authorized the evacuation on 2 January and Ambassador Bishop specifically requested a US military evacuation, thus beginning Operation Eastern Exit. Ambassador Bishop had spent a considerable amount of time discussing contingency plans for evacuation with other diplomatic posts. Ultimately, ten heads of missions—eight ambassadors and two chargés d'affaires—along with their staff sought refuge in the US embassy compound and were evacuated. Initial plans called for the
United States Air Force to dispatch two transport aircraft to
Mogadishu International Airport, but diplomats were unable to contact anyone in the Somali government to obtain clearance for the aircraft to land at the airport and it also became clear that it was too dangerous to travel from the embassy to the airport. Meanwhile, and began transit from the coast of Oman towards Mogadishu with forces from the 4th
Marine Expeditionary Brigade. On January 4, several incidents, including several exchanges of gunfire, suggested that the embassy's security detail was insufficient to hold off armed Somalis until USS
Guam and USS
Trenton arrived with their helicopters and soldiers, at that time scheduled to arrive on January 7. The embassy had just six Marine guards, whose job was limited to protecting the
chancery. Ambassador Bishop made an urgent request to Washington for two platoons of soldiers to parachute into the embassy to defend it until the ships arrived. The request was denied, but the Ambassador was told that an advance element of Marines from the vessels would reach the embassy the following morning. Two helicopters carrying a 60-man security detail—51 Marines and 9
US Navy SEALs—reached the embassy compound on the morning of January 5 and left with 61 evacuees. Throughout the day US and foreign nationals seeking evacuation arrived at the embassy compound, including the Soviet ambassador and 38 of his staff from the Soviet Union's embassy. Meanwhile, the embassy compound was prepared for the main evacuation, which occurred in the early morning hours of January 6. The first of four waves of helicopters—three for civilians and the fourth for the security detail and ambassador—left the ships at midnight (
UTC+4). The final wave reached the ships at 03:43. A total of 281 evacuees were taken from the embassy, including eight ambassadors (and two other heads of missions) and 61 Americans. Armed looters were observed entering the embassy compound as the final wave departed. The doors of the chancery—the main building of the embassy—were reportedly blown open by
rocket-propelled grenades within two hours of the embassy's evacuation. Somali employees of the embassy—known as foreign service nationals (FSNs)—could not be evacuated. Local banks had been closed for some time and the embassy was unable to pay the FSNs. The Ambassador left the FSNs with keys to the commissary and warehouse on the embassy compound and they were permitted to take anything they needed. The United States reopened its embassy in Mogadishu nearly three decades after Somalia collapsed into civil war, on October 2, 2019. Ambassador
Donald Yamamoto said that the reopening reflected progress in the Horn of Africa country in recent years and the partnership between the two countries. ==Embassy compound==