The Embassy of the United States of America to Somalia is a diplomatic mission of the United States in Mogadishu, Somalia, from 1960 to 1991. In 1957, the US opened a consulate-general in Mogadishu—the capital of the Trust Territory of Somalia, a UN trusteeship under Italian administration. The consulate was upgraded to embassy status in July 1960, when the US recognized Somalia's independence and appointed an ambassador. The embassy served to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War and also served as a base for the United States Agency for International Development, which had a large presence in the country. In 1989, the embassy moved from a dilapidated building in central Mogadishu to a new compound on the outskirts of the city.

Violence quickly enveloped the city in late December 1990, during the Somali Civil War, and on 1 January 1991, the ambassador contacted the State Department to request the closure and evacuation of the embassy. Approval was given the following day, but violence and the collapse of the central government prevented the US, and several other countries, from airlifting their diplomats and civilians through Mogadishu International Airport. and , which were stationed off the coast of Oman, were dispatched to airlift staff from the embassy; American civilians and many foreign diplomats also gathered at the embassy, seeking evacuation. The embassy closed on January 5, 1991, and 281 American and foreign diplomats and civilians were airlifted by helicopter from the embassy compound to Guam and Trenton.

In December 1992, the embassy compound was reoccupied and repaired to serve as a headquarters for US personnel within the Unified Task Force and, following the transition to UN control, a base for UNOSOM. The US worked with various parties in Somalia to establish peace and formally recognized the newly established Federal Government of Somalia in January 2013. In May 2015, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Somalia and stated that the US planned to reopen its embassy soon; the Somali government presented him with the real estate deed for land reserved for the new US embassy compound in Mogadishu. The move came three months after President Obama nominated Katherine Dhanani to the post of US ambassador to Somalia, who would have been the first US ambassador to Somalia since 1991, but she withdrew three months later.

In December 2018, the United States established a permanent diplomatic mission in Mogadishu. On October 2, 2019, the United States announced the reestablishment of the United States Embassy in Mogadishu.

History

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