The campaign had completely destroyed Hargeisa, causing its population of 500,000 to flee across the border and the city was "reduced to a ghost town with 14,000 buildings destroyed and a further 12,000 heavily damaged". Civilian refugees fleeing towards the border were bombed and gunned indiscriminately. These killings started after the SNM escalated its incursions into the Isaaq majority cities in the north. Somali Air Force aircraft started intense aerial bombardment of Burao on Tuesday 31 May. Many thousands of others are being systematically denied food because Somali forces are deliberately holding up essential supplies. They appealed to the non-Isaaks to leave so they could burn the town and all those who remained behind. The intervention culminated in the so-called Battle of Mogadishu on October 3-4, 1993, in which 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somali militia fighters and civilians . Many Somalis have reported that military and security officers only respond to inquiries by detainees' relatives with promises to secure their release in exchange for cash payments. In February 1992, Physicians for Human Rights sent a medical team to the region to examine the scale of the problem of land-mines left over from the 19881991 conflict, they have described the situation as follows: They [mines] are most prevalent in the countryside surrounding two of Somaliland's principal cities, Hargeisa and Burao, and in the pastoral and agricultural lands west of Burao. During the period of unrest in the north of the country, the government started arresting civilian Isaaq residents of the capital, Mogadishu. While direct evidence is not available, most observers agree that Siad Barre's forces undertook this extensive mining to prevent resettlement by the predominantly Isaak nomads and agriculturists. Somalia intervention, United States-led military operation in 1992-93 mounted as part of a wider international humanitarian and peacekeeping effort in Somalia that began in the summer of 1992 and ended in the spring of 1995. However, for the Northwest [Isaaq], this and even stronger terms (such as genocide) are regularly used. Hargeisa was the second largest city of the country,[122] it was also strategically important due to its geographic proximity to Ethiopia (which made it central to military planning of successive Somali governments). This was especially harsh due to region's semi-arid climate and frequent water shortages. [169][170], In addition to the "systematic destruction of Isaaq dwellings, settlements and water points", bombing raids were conducted on major cities in the northwest regions inhabited mainly by Isaaq on orders of President Barre.[99]. Bosnia: A dangerous crisis is brewing in the Balkans | CNN The response culminated in the bombing and artillery bombardment of Hargeisa to a point of virtual destruction. [86], More extreme recommendations included: "Rendering uninhabitable the territory between the army and the enemy, which can be done by destroying the water tanks and the villages lying across the territory used by them for infiltration"; and "removing from the membership of the armed forces and civil service all those who are open to suspicion of aiding the enemy especially those holding sensitive posts".[84]. In the countryside, the persecution of Isaaq included the creation of a mechanised section of the Somali Armed Forces dubbed as Dabar Goynta Isaaqa (The Isaaq Exterminators) consisting entirely of non-Isaaqs (mainly Ogaden);[31][32] this unit conducted a "systematic pattern of attacks against unarmed, civilian villages, watering points and grazing areas of northern Somalia [Somaliland], killing many of their residents and forcing survivors to flee for safety to remote areas".