John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Somalia on Tuesday — the first U.S. secretary of state ever to travel to the country riven by decades of war and grappling with an Islamist insurgency.

The secretary of state was greeted upon arrival in Mogadishu by Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who called the visit "a great moment" for his nation.

"I'm glad to be here," Kerry said, asking if the president had spent a "long time" waiting for his arrival.

"It's worth waiting," Mohamud replied.

Kerry's visit was expected to send a strong message about U.S. involvement in Somalia, which long has been colored by the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" operation in which 18 American troops were killed when militants shot down their helicopters in Mogadishu.

Somalia has lacked a strong central government for more than 20 years — and been battling the scourge of al Shabab, the al Qaeda-linked terror group behind last month's deadly attack on a university in neighboring Kenya.