Chapter 3 Al-Qaeda: We Are Alive

As soon as he stepped out of the plane, Shi Shaoying immediately smelled a familiar smell, which was a unique smell that would only be produced after steel was burned at high temperatures.

Bunkers and barbed wire fences are scattered around the airport, which are divided into four layers of defense, surrounding the Mogadishu International Airport, which is backed by mountains and facing the sea, and not far away you can see the wreckage of a passenger plane that crashed because of a mechanical failure or was shot down with a weapon, lying alone in a pile of rubble and loess.

On the hillside to the right of the airport, the buildings that used to exist have long since been blown into ruins. As far as the eye can see, the only thing that remains in this desolate land is a row of simple bungalows made of reinforced concrete, topped with asbestos tiles, which can withstand machine-gun bullets and grenades, which in the eyes of Shi Shaoying are not so much waiting rooms as enlarged bunkers.

Three Soviet-made T72 heavy main battle tanks, four light armored vehicles, and eight military jeeps armed with heavy machine guns or vehicle-mounted mortars were parked around them, forming a rapid reaction mobile unit.

This is the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu "International Airport"!

As soon as they stepped off the plane, they raised their cameras and snapped at the professional soldiers armed with automatic rifles around the airport.

These professional soldiers who are responsible for airport security are not from Somalia, but from Uganda's peacekeeping forces. Now that the Somali civil war is raging and chaotic, there are constant calls to the outside world for countries around the world to send peacekeeping troops. Today, only two countries, Uganda and Burundi, have sent 4,300 peacekeepers to Somalia, and the other African Union countries that have pledged to send peacekeeping troops have been slow to act.

Some national security advisers have calculated that the current situation in Somalia will require at least 27,000 peacekeepers to barely keep Somalia at bay. Obviously, unless the United Nations, led by the United States, is willing to send peacekeeping troops again, it is almost a pipe dream for the African Union to assemble such a large peacekeeping force only by those poor and even self-contained member states!

As for the United States, they believe that now that the peacekeeping force enters Somalia, it is likely that the armed forces will be regarded as enemies, and the peacekeeping force will be attacked and there is a danger of being involved in the internal war in Somalia. Therefore, the entry of UN peacekeepers into Somalia will not only not help Somalia achieve peace, but will exacerbate the conflict and interfere with the political reconciliation process advocated by the current Somali government!

For this declaration, Shi Shaoying was thinking, after experiencing the "Black Hawk Fall" in Mogadishu in 1993, the United States encountered a desperate one, and finally hairy, scared, frightened, **?!

Seeing a few passengers walking off the plane, they were taking pictures around with their cameras, and a major frowned and walked quickly towards them, and just as he walked as he walked with a suspicious professional gaze to look at the few people in front of him who were too arrogant and should have a great background, the only man among the five who did not take pictures with a camera suddenly let out a wild shout: "Dropdown! (Lying down)

Without thinking, the major threw himself forward and lay directly on the ground, and almost at the same time, an old mortar shell slashed through the air, and the sharp whistle it brought out pierced the eardrums of everyone present.

"Boom!"

Mortar shells smashed into the airfield, a cloud of gunpowder smoke mixed with shrapnel and gravel flew in a radial manner, a small passenger plane that was accelerating on the runway to prepare for liftoff, received this unexpected attack, after receiving the order from the ground command center, the pilot immediately turned the nose of the plane and flew towards a safer sea.

A sharp whistling sound sounded again in the air, and the terrorists, who were lying behind some ruins and setting up mortars, opened fire again.

The major quickly turned his head, looked at the alarm that was issued to everyone at the first time, and couldn't help but press down Sikong Bowen, who was holding the camera to shoot happily, and used his body to protect her division and young eagle, the major's eyes were not by any means grateful, but a strong vigilance.

As a member of the state security agency, the major has a far superior ability to observe, and he can be 100% sure that the position where the division and young eagle stood just now did not directly face the mortar erection point, in other words, he just used his ears to hear the characteristic sound of mortar firing; Shi Shaoying held down Sikong Bowen and took her to the ground when he threw himself to the ground, he first stretched out his left hand to cushion Sikong Bowen's chest, although it looked too much like eating a girl's tofu, but in fact, he used his arm to prop up a small space for Sikong Bowen to avoid causing damage to Sikong Bowen's body due to the explosion of the cannonball at close range and the ground vibration.

The most important thing is that when Shi Shaoying took Sikong Bowen to lie down, he deliberately twisted his body and made a thirty-degree shift in the air in the direction of their lying down, using their feet to face the explosion point of the shell. In other words, when Shi Shaoying heard the whistle of the shell in the air, he had already accurately judged the final point of impact of the shell!

To be able to make such a precise judgment in the event of a sudden attack is only possible for the most highly trained and battle-hardened veterans!

"Let Me Go !!"

Sikong Bowen, who was protected by Shi Shaoying's body with his body, suddenly struggled hard after understanding what was happening, she pushed Shi Shaoying away fiercely, and glanced at the camera that she had tried her best to protect when she fell, but fortunately, it still worked.

Sikong Bowen jumped up, not even having time to look at the wounds on her knees and elbows, she raised the camera in her hand and slammed the corners of the airport as she ran.

Shi Shaoying really can't describe it in words, Sikong Bowen held the camera, and when he was rampage on the battlefield where shrapnel was flying sideways, the sound of heavy machine gun fire was almost in a line, and the heroic posture formed by absolute concentration was sassy.

Sikong Bowen uses a semi-automatic camera, and only this kind of professional camera, can take better quality photos, Sikong Bowen's right thumb swiped to the right again and again, toggle the film to rotate, her right thumb every time she finishes a toggle, her right index finger will fall directly in the shortest possible time, in the camera shutter flashing, everything that is happening in front of her, faithfully recorded on the film, become the most valuable war news.

The air wave from the explosion of the cannonball ruffled Sikong Bowen's hair, and the sand and gravel mixed in the wind hurt the skin on her face, and the peacekeepers around her kept shouting "dropdown", "dropdown", "dropdown", "dropdown", but Sikong Bowen still kept running and shooting.

"I'll torture!"

Seeing Sikong Bowen's movements when he changed the film, even Shi Shaoying's eyes widened.

Sikong Bowen's body has a long strip of hard plastic box that looks a little similar to the magazine, Shi Shaoying never knew what it was, but until today he didn't know that Sikong Bowen actually made a "magazine", and the film is a bullet, when she needs it, as long as she reaches out, she can take out a film from the top, and the film below will be pushed to the top under the push of the spring, so that the "ammunition" will be continuously sent to Sikong Bowen's hand.

Although this kind of prop will not save Sikong Bowen much time, but don't forget, this is on the battlefield, and one second may be able to determine the life and death of a soldier one-on-one!

The industry is proficient in specialization and excellence, and this sentence is the most perfect embodiment in Sikong Bowen's body.

It was during the flickering of the shutter that Sikong Bowen used his own camera to faithfully photograph everything after the attack on the airport......

After judging the approximate position of the mortars, it took only fifteen seconds for more than 10 heavy machine guns to turn around and shoot at the ruins of the hidden mortars in a series of non-stop suppressive strafing, splashing the rubble of the ruins in the flying shells. If at this time, those terrorists still don't give up and want to expose their heads outside to find targets, then he is 100% of the birthday boy hanged himself and thought his life was too long!

Three T72 main battle tanks and several armored vehicles were activated, and the diesel engines, which had been in place for several years, let out a series of roars as if they had asthma, and in the creaking sound of the tracks, with the loess in the sky, they flanked left and right, forming a pincer attack on the target.

But Shi Shaoying knew that even if these peacekeeping troops rushed forward, it would be too late. The fact that the terrorists, who were hiding behind the rubble of their houses, stopped their attacks after firing only four mortar shells showed that they were well aware of the time it would take for the peacekeepers stationed at the airport to rush in front of them with tanks and armoured vehicles at maximum speed. Shooting a shot to change a place, firing four shells without even looking at the tactics, picking up the mortar and running, those terrorists can be regarded as having thoroughly studied guerrilla tactics.

The smoke from the shells had not yet dissipated, and the shrill sirens still echoed in their ears, but the peacekeepers at the airport had already stood up, dusted off their bodies, and returned to their posts. It must be said that from the point of view of not being chaotic, these peacekeepers from Uganda are among the best in the world.

Later, it took a long time for Shi Shaoying to learn that the probability of a terrorist attack on the "international airport" in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, ranked first in the world. Al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist group in Somalia, organized forces at every turn to carry out bomb attacks on airports; Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan has a large number of "elite veterans" who survived the fight with the US special forces, and they are even more extraordinary, running over with mortars at two ends in three days, firing a few shots at the airport and then calmly retreating. They are not deliberately trying to kill anyone, they are trying to make a declaration to the Somali government in this way...... Hey, don't get too complacent, we're still alive!

So, the shelling of the "international airport" in Mogadishu by Shi Shaoying is really nothing.

Otherwise, why do those who have been to Somalia say that "you don't need a visa to come to Somalia at all, because there is no government there at all?" You just need to find a plane that can fly there and make sure you don't get shot down before you land."

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