بنو هوية
جمهورية الصومال الفيدرالية

Hawiye clan insurgents
Operator: United Somali Congress
Location: Mogadishu, Somalia
Timeframe: 1993

The size and organizational structure of the Somali militia forces involved in the battle are not known in detail. In all, an estimated 1,500–4,000 regular faction members are believed to have participated, almost all of whom belonged to Mohammed Farrah Aidid's Somali National Alliance (SNA). They drew largely from the Habar Gidir sub-clan of the Hawiye, who began fighting U.S. troops in the 1993 amphibious invasion. SNA forces were primarily equipped with light infantry weaponry, like the AK-47 assault rifle. Experienced fighters supplemented the main forces with RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, sniper rifles, mortars, mines and machine guns.

During the Battle of Mogadishu, SNA forces fought alongside hundreds of irregulars comprised mostly of untrained civilians-turned-combatants, many of whom were women and children who had grievances against UNOSOM troops. Human rights abuses and killings by UN peacekeepers, US military airstrikes in heavily populated neighborhoods, forced evictions for UN compound expansions and the difficulty of receiving legal recourse for wrongs committed by United Nations forces all inflamed the growing animosity of the civilian population of Mogadishu. Large numbers of Somalis not affiliated with the SNA or Aidid joined the battle spontaneously, as small arms were widely distributed and among the civilian population of Mogadishu to be utilized for self-defense. By the time of the Battle of Mogadishu, literally every inhabitant considered the UN and US as enemies and were ready to take up arms against them. People who ten months before had welcomed the US Marines with open arms were now ready to risk death to drive them out.