ProbableNamed from the place
Mogadishu line
noun · first attested 1990s
One firefight in Somalia gave peacekeeping doctrine a boundary and a name.
The point at which a peacekeeping force stops keeping the peace and becomes a party to the fighting.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- ProbableThe conventional story is likely, with caveats.
- Attested
- 1990s
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Mogadishu
- In English
Mogadishu line
The American raid in Mogadishu in October 1993 cost eighteen US lives and helped bring the United Nations mission there to an end. British commanders in Bosnia took the city's name for the threshold they intended not to cross, and the phrase spread through military and policy writing over the rest of the decade.