Russian Surface to Air Missle Blast

An abandoned Russian surface to air missle site blown up by American Troops just outside Mogadishu, Somalia in October of 1993. This blast contained approximately 90,000 lbs of explosives and blew out the windows of the building this was filmed on (you can hear the glass breaking in the video immediately after the shockwave).

The unexploded ordinance located at this site was being used by Somali clans to create IED's on supply routes used by U.S and U.N troops.

This video was sent to me not to long ago by an ABC news photographer after seeing the photos on my website.

Prep pictures of the blast and photos I took are located on my website here - http://www.eccentricamerica.net/Somalia/picspage.cfm?p=7

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Somalia
• Explosion
• 1993

[ibnqhazzi]

i am somalian i did not know that we had such powerful weapons in our country, why was is it destroyed?

[eccentricAmerica]

This was either a Russian base, or a Somali base with Russian equipment left abandoned in the countryside after the civil war. Militants were using peices of the explosive material left here to attack U.N and U.S forces.

[HerroHerrar]

Russian base? the Russians were kicked out off Somalia in 1980, the Somalis killed more than 5000 Russians in the Ogaden war, this was Somalian defense system bought from the Russians in mid 70's, still dont know why you had to destroy it,

[eccentricAmerica]

@HerroHerrar Wasn't really ever sure of who this belonged to when I was there. Was told at the time it was a Russian base, and all the equipment there had russian writing on it. Was like everyone just bugged out one day and left all the equipment in place.

The reason we destroyed it though was that the Somali's were using the explosives left there to create command detonated mines against U.S convoys.

[joeytoots]

I want to know how far you are from the explosion -

[eccentricAmerica]

When we originally did this blast, I thought we were somewhere around 5 miles away, but after watching the video years later, I came to realize that we were much closer.

Sound travels at 340.29 meters/second - the shockwave hit us about 8 seconds after the explosion, so we were about 2722 meters or about 1.7 miles away.

[HomicideZero]

Make another fart fire video.

[drhollywood77]

@HerroHerrar are you retarded or something ? why you put all this senseless stuff together ? russians didnt fought in somalia..

[HerroHerrar]

@drhollywood77 OK there were no 15,000 Cuban combat troops. there were NO 5 000 soviet combat troops with ground and air power, there were NO 20 000 southern Yemeni Communist troops, we were fighting ghosts loool, get real dude do some authentic research, and the west with its all fighting the Communists rhetoric didn't do shit to help us, the only people that helped us was western Germany at that time and we will always love them

[drhollywood77]

@HerroHerrar 5000 russians werent even there

[CHSIndependent]

Enjoyed the post. The comments on it are even more entertaining. You can't knock Soviet or Russian firepower. That they tended to build solid dependable weaponry is evidenced by the fact that people from Somalia to Afghanistan and beyond carry AK-47's and RPG's as well as various small arms. During the cold war, they knew their birds didn't have the legs or performance to tangle reliably with the west, so they built the most frightening SAM arsenal ever built. Good to see one go!

[SovietBear91]

@HerroHerrar so are your reading with eating how the child was barbarian nigger...dude cant you get it or what im not russian or slav so your fucking insults against russia are total useless...and where does aids come from, africa becuase you pigs fucked some apes in the ass

[HerroHerrar]

@SovietBear91 jealous of what drunks and whores(russia have more Aids than anywhere elase in the planet after south africa)? if i would have been jealous i would have been jelouse about UAE,SINGAPOOR,JAPAN,MALAYSIA,C­HINA,USA,ENGLAND, NOT RUSSIA OR SERBIA OR ANY OTHER EASTERN Europe white(pigs) trash lol,

[SovietBear91]

@HerroHerrar im not russian so stop with your useless jaundices...soviet union is the pioneer of the space age and they does other great things in sports, society, science and so on but what your nigger country has reached, the answer is NOTHING so go and cook some humans and make some shoes for europe, fucking african freedom fighter

[HerroHerrar]

@SovietBear91 and oooh yeah you fucking pigs have no culture other that getting drunk lol

[HerroHerrar]

@SovietBear91 hahahah eeey you drunken Slav(slave race) lol, you must be brain damaged of all that homemade vodka, because i explained how the soviets got in conflict with the Somalis, but you seem to be very brain damaged, who ever said i'm Somali huh? seriously man lay off that vodka lol