Since the 1960's the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has engaged in a variety of covert activities in the east African country of Somalia. These activities have included financing pro-Western Somali political parties, funding warlords, extraordinary renditions and most recently operating black sites. Democratic Era (1960 - 1969) CIA agents reportedly played a significant role in manipulating the outcome of the 1967 elections. The ascension Prime Minister Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal was in large part financed by thousands of dollars in covert support to Egal and other pro-Western elements in the ruling Somali Youth League party by the CIA. Somali Civil War (1991 - Present) UNOSOM II (1993) On 12th of July, 1993, the U.S. State Department issued a warning that the CIA had received intelligence regarding a planned large-scale assault on UN officials in Mogadishu by Mohamed Farah Aideed’s faction, the Somali National Alliance. According to Professor Raphael Chijioke Njoku, the American contingent of UNOSOM II responded to the CIA's intelligence by launching a helicopter attack that resulted in deaths of 70 Somalis who had been discussing a peace proposal. Shortly after the raid it was disclosed that the CIA report had been incorrect. Funding anti-Islamist warlords (2004 - 2006) The CIA began a covert operation to arm and finance Somali warlords who were fighting against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). At the behest of the CIA, in early 2006 numerous Somali warlords had united under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. Operating from the intelligence agency’s station in Nairobi, Kenya, CIA agents would make frequent trips to Mogadishu by plane where they would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the warlords. When the payments to the warlords shifted the military balance of the country in their favor, the ICU started a strike against the American-backed coalition and drove it out of Mogadishu, becoming the first organization to consolidate control over the entire city since the collapse of the Somali state. Although the ICU was locally supported for having restored a relative level of peace to the volatile region after having defeated the CIA-funded Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in the Second Battle of Mogadishu, concerns about the growth and popular support for an Islamic country during the United States' War on Terror led to the intervention of the CIA, the United States military and Ethiopia's dominantly Christian government.