Unrest in Somalia had escalated into a full-scale civil war in 1991. President Bush had dispatched 25,000 soldiers to the country to join a United Nations peacekeeping mission. By the late 1993, Somalia remained in a state of civil war, and 4,000 American soldiers still served in the UN peacekeeping mission. In October 1993, U.S. special forces launched a raid on Mogadishu with the intention of capturing warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, who had led attacks against U.N. forces. The raid ended in failure and in the deaths of eighteen Americans. The humiliating incident led Americans to questioned the presence of U.S. soldiers in Somalia. After Somali leaders signed a peace agreement in early 1994, Clinton removed U.S. forces from the country.