General Mohamed Farrah Hassan Aidid was a Somali military commander and faction
leader. A former general and diplomat, he was the chairman of the United Somali
Congress and later led the Somali National Alliance. Along with other
armed opposition groups, they drove out President Mohamed Siad Barre's regime
from Somalia's capital Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War that broke out in
the early 1990s. In 1992, Aidid challenged the presence
of US-led United Nations troops in the nation. He was one of the main targets
of the Unified Task Force. After eventually forcing UN forces to abandon
the country in 1995, Aidid declared himself President of Somalia for a few
months until his death the following year.
Early years Aidid was born in 1934 in Beledweyne,
Italian Somaliland to a Habar Gidir family. He was educated in Rome and
Moscow and served in the Italian colonial police force in the 1950s. He
later joined the Somali National Army. For advanced military training, Aidid
studied at the Frunze Military Academy in the former Soviet Union, an elite
institution reserved for the most qualified officers of the Warsaw Pact
armies and their allies. In 1969, a few days after the
assassination of Somalia's second president Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a
military junta led by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre staged a bloodless
coup d'état. Aidid was one of many officer serving at the central command
of the Army at the time of the putsch. He quickly fell out of favour with the
new regime's leaders and was subsequently detained. Aidid was
eventually released from prison six years afterwards to take part in the
1977–78 war against Ethiopia over the disputed Ogaden region.
He later served in President Barre's advisor and as Somalia's ambassador to
India, before finally being appointed intelligence chief.
United Somali Congress After fallout from the unsuccessful
Ogaden campaign of the late 1970s, the Barre administration began arresting
government and military officials under suspicion of participation in the
abortive 1978 coup d'état. Most of the people who had allegedly helped plot the
putsch were summarily executed. However, several officials managed to escape
abroad and started to form the first of various dissident groups dedicated to
ousting Barre's regime by force. By the late 1980s, Barre's regime had
become increasingly unpopular. The authorities became increasingly
totalitarian, and resistance movements, encouraged by Ethiopia's communist Derg
administration, sprang up across the country. This eventually led in 1991 to
the outbreak of the civil war, the toppling of Barre's government, and the
disbandment of the Somali National Army. Many of the opposition groups
subsequently began competing for influence in the power vacuum that
followed the ouster of Barre's regime. Armed factions led by United Somali
Congress commanders General Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed, in particular,
clashed as each sought to exert authority over the capital. However,
Aidid failed to attract many Somali leaders and intellectuals to the USC's
cause, including fellow Frunze graduate General Abdullahi Ahmed Irro, who opted
instead to remain politically neutral. UN Security Council Resolution 733 and
UN Security Council Resolution 746 led to the creation of UNOSOM I, the first
stabilization mission in Somalia after the dissolution of the central
government. United Nations Security Council Resolution 794 was unanimously
passed on December 3, 1992, which approved a coalition of United Nations
peacekeepers led by the United States. Forming the Unified Task Force, the
alliance was tasked with assuring security until humanitarian efforts were
transferred to the UN. Landing in 1993, the UN peacekeeping coalition started
the two-year United Nations Operation in Somalia II primarily in the south.
Presidency declaration Aidid subsequently declared himself
President of Somalia in June 1995. However, his declaration received no
international recognition, as his rival Ali Mahdi Muhammad had already been
elected interim president at a conference in Djibouti and recognized as
such by the international community. Consequently, Aidid's faction continued
its quest for hegemony in the south. In September 1995, militia forces loyal to
him attacked the city of Baidoa, killing 10 local residents and capturing at
least 20 foreign aid workers. Death
On July 24, 1996, Aidid and his men clashed with the forces of former allies
Ali Mahdi Muhammad and Osman Ali Atto. Atto was a former supporter and
financier of Aidid, and of the same subclan. Atto is alleged to have master
minded the defeat of Aidid. Aidid suffered a gunshot wound in the ensuing
battle. He later died from a heart attack on August 1, either during or
after surgery to treat his injuries. Other officers allegedly targeted by
Atto include General Talan. The U.S. Department of State asserted, in its
Country Report for Somalia for the year 2000, that the killing of Yusuf Tallan,
a former general under the Barre regime, was connected to Osman Ali Atto. The
report did not provide specific corroboration for the assertion.
Family During the events leading up to the
civil war, Aidid's wife Khadiga Gurhan sought asylum in Canada in 1989, moving
the couple's four children with her. Local media shortly afterwards alleged
that she had returned to Somalia for a five-month stay while still receiving
welfare payments. Gurhan admitted in an interview to collecting welfare and
having briefly traveled to Somalia in late 1991. However, it was later brought
to light that she had been granted landed immigrant status in June 1991,
thereby making her a legal resident of Canada. Additionally, Aidid's rival
President Barre had been overthrown in January of that year. This altogether
ensured that Gurhan's five-month trip would not have undermined her initial
1989 claim of refugee status. An official probe by Canadian immigration
officials into the allegations also concluded that she had obtained her
landing papers through normal legal processes.
Hussein Mohamed Farrah, son of General Aidid, emigrated to the United States
when he was 17 years old. Staying 16 years in the country, he eventually
became a naturalized citizen and later a United States Marine who served in
Somalia. Two days after his father's death, the Somali National Alliance
declared Hussein as the new President, although he too was not internationally
recognized as such. Notes
References Binney, Michael. Joint Close Air Support
in the Low Intensity Conflict. Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School.
June 2003. Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story
of Modern War. Berkeley, California: Atlantic Monthly Press. March 1999.
"Somali faction leader Aidid dies". CNN. August 2, 1996.
Lutz, David. Hannover Institute of Philosophical Research. The Ethics of
American Military Policy in Africa. Front Royal, Virginia: Joint Services
Conference on Professional Ethics. 2000. McKinley, James. 'How a U.S. Marine
Became a Warlord in Somalia'. New York: The New York Times. August 16, 1996.