Africa has been a hotbed of conflict for the last century. As the colonial regimes
of the Old World withered, the shadow of the Cold War enveloped the continent.
Vast natural resources were discovered and weapons proliferated, providing the means for idealists
and renegades to take power for themselves. This is Untangling Africa, and in this episode,
we’re taking a look at the conflict in Somalia: a war that still rages to this day.
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The Republic of Somalia was founded on July 1st 1960, from the ex-colonial states of
British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. But just like many other newly independent African
states, its borders were arbitrary. Somalis were dispersed far beyond Somalia’s borders,
particularly in the Ogaden region in neighbouring Ethiopia, to the country’s west.
Somalis may have been of the same ethnicity, but their separate colonial histories left them
politically divided. In addition, Somali society was, and still is, largely governed by clans.
Their social hierarchy is fixed and determined by one’s clan allegiances. Each clan has a
traditional homeland, and virtually all share the same religion: Sunni Islam.
Both Somalia’s borders and its government were drawn up by the British and Italians when they
officially left in 1960, but they weren’t to last. In 1969, the President, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke,
was shot dead by his own bodyguard. This precipitated a military coup, and the Somali Army,
led by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, seized power alongside his comrades in the Supreme
Revolutionary Council. Barre’s first policy dissolved the courts and binned the constitution.
Barre controlled the military, but his initial grasp on Somalia was shakey.
Somalis wouldn’t accept his rule unless they saw a real benefit, so Barre tried to fix every issue
at once. He nationalised much of Somalia’s land and most of its key industries, and the revenue
generated from these industries was used to roll out a massive literacy campaign. Politically,
Barre combined core socialist tenets with traditional Islamic beliefs to build a government
aligned with the Soviet Bloc. In return, he received substantial Soviet military aid.
By mid-1977, Barre was on a roll. Between 1972 and 1977, literacy in Somalia had risen from a dismal
5% to a commendable 70%. Public confidence in his government was generally strong,
and he had a well-trained and well-equipped army to back him up. Now was the time to take
back Somalia’s ancestral lands to the west and make the dream of “Greater Somalia” a reality.
In 1977, Barre started the Ogaden War.
He nearly won it, too, but then the Ethiopian government convinced Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev that Ethiopia was more communist than Somalia. The Soviets responded by shifting their
support to the Ethiopians, and the Somalis were hung out to dry. Barre’s army was crushed, and
it limped back across the border, bringing with it thousands of Somali refugees from Ethiopia.
By the 1980s, Barre’s support base was crumbling. A third of his loyalists were
dead on Ethiopian battlefields and his war expenses had emptied the treasury.
All for nothing. On top of this, Somalia was hit by the worst drought in living memory.
Named “Mahanaw,” the drought killed thousands of livestock and kickstarted a famine.
As livestock exports constituted Somalia’s second-largest industry, the economy tanked.
In the face of these insurmountable problems, Barre’s government floundered. Opposition groups
arose throughout Somalia to challenge his power, and the government became
increasingly authoritarian. Barre sanctioned attacks and bombings against locals he believed
were supporting the opposition. In the north, his forces prosecuted a genocide
against the Isaaq—one of Somalia’s major clans—reportedly killing over 200,000 people.
The world was outraged, and foreign aid, the backbone of Somalia’s economy since the drought,
was cut off. After this, the economy collapsed further, and unpaid soldiers deserted,
often taking their equipment with them back to their clan homelands. Public institutions
disintegrated without funding, and Somalia’s gains since independence were reversed.
With their money effectively worthless, their people slaughtered, and facing widespread
starvation, the clans rose up. They formed the United Somali Congress or USC, and put General
Mohammad Farrah Aidid in charge of its soldiers. They crushed the last remnants of the Somali Army.
In 1991, USC rebels took the capital Mogadishu and ousted Barre for good.
Aidid declared himself President in the aftermath, and the other clans,
which had definitely not agreed to that, pulled their support.
Each withdrew to their homelands and consolidated; a long and bloody war was to come.
Thus, in 1991, Somalia splintered. The northern region that used to be British
Somaliland broke away from the non-existent central government and declared independence.
To its east, the Somalia Salvation Democratic Front seized control. Aidid’s USC
dominated Somalia’s central coast but was flanked inland by the Somali National Front
which, in turn, shared borders with the Somali Patriotic Movement in the south,
the Somali Democratic Movement in the centre, and the Somali Africans Muke Organisation to the east.
Some factions were well-armed; some were not. Some had firm economic bases; others didn’t.
All, however, were starving. It was at this point that the UN decided to get involved.
Talks were held with the major factions, and vague agreements were made to affect a
ceasefire in the capital, which was still being fought over.
The United Nations Operation in Somalia I was launched in April 1992.
Its remit was to monitor the ceasefire and provide facilities for relief agencies to
import food and medicine. Fifty unarmed peacekeepers were deployed to make this happen.
It might’ve looked good on paper, but UNOSOM I proved a failure. Fifty unarmed blue helmets
weren’t enough to monitor the entire city of Mogadishu, and fighting continued unabated.
Troubles didn’t end there for the UN, though. The warlords soon realised that
the peacekeepers hadn’t been given a mandate to use lethal force, so they began looting
their warehouses. All manner of UN supplies were stolen, including virtually all of the relief aid.
By December, the UN was ready to give up. Anything they brought into Somalia was immediately stolen,
and the peacekeepers couldn’t walk the streets for fear of being killed.
A new strategy was needed, and the United States were ready to provide it.
Thoroughly embarrassed and out of options, the UN agreed.
The American strategy was as simple as it was effective: they called in the marines. On
December 6th 1992, US Marines and other units made several landings around Mogadishu. They
secured the airport and seaport without much of a fight and set up bases to receive reinforcements.
Before long, 25,000 US military personnel and 7,000 more coalition soldiers were in Somalia.
With air support and armoured vehicles, they crushed any warlords who resisted and divided
the country into sections, which were then locked down and cantoned. Some battles were fought, but
any warlord with an inkling of sense realised that going against the full might of the US military
was a bad idea. They were cowed, and within five months, the situation was largely stabilised.
Relief aid was getting through, and the humanitarian situation was improving.
Wide-scale DDR programs were not undertaken, however, as US planners believed them ineffective.
For the warlords, their primary deterrent was the UN’s overwhelming military force.
UNITAF achieved its goal by March 1993. Somalia was secure, but only because 37,000 well-armed
soldiers patrolled its streets, enforcing peace at gunpoint. It was then that the UN
took over for a second time, reorganising UNITAF into UNOSOM II. Some of the Yanks went home,
but there were still 22,000 combat troops in-country. Their objective was
massively expanded, too, from “enforce peace and stop aid getting stolen”
to “rebuild the entire state.” Was such a lofty goal was doomed to fail?
On June 5th 1993, a Pakistani force was sent to reconnoitre an arms warehouse controlled by
the warlord Aidid, whose men killed 24 of the Pakistanis, and forced the rest to retreat. The
next day, the UN issued Resolution 837, declaring they would “take all necessary measures against
those responsible for the armed attacks and to establish the effective authority of UNOSOM II
throughout Somalia.” This amounted to a declaration of war on Aidid and his militia.
UN forces knew he was hiding somewhere in Mogadishu, so they relentlessly attacked
targets in the city. Civilians were often caught in the crossfire, which lost UN soldiers their
reputation as peacekeepers. From then on, the locals saw them as foreign occupiers.
This came to a head on Bloody Monday, when ten US attack helicopters blew up a house of
Somali elders having a meeting. The Americans killed their targets, but also managed to kill
50-odd Somali priests, intellectuals, businessmen, and clan leaders. For the
people of Mogadishu, the tide had turned. They felt the UN was now fighting them.
The next time the Americans came, they were ready.
It happened on October 3rd. One hundred and sixty Delta Force operators and US Army Rangers
moved into Mogadishu as part of Operation Gothic Serpent.
They were after Aidid’s top lieutenants, and a series of quick helicopter insertions secured
these high-value targets relatively quickly. All was going to plan, until Super 61, a Black
Hawk Helicopter piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Wolcott, was downed by an RPG-wielding militiaman.
Aidid’s men closed in, and the special forces began a desperate fight for survival. Later
that day, a second Black Hawk was shot down, and Mogadishu’s civilians set up impromptu
roadblocks that effectively closed off the city. The Rangers and Delta operators were
forced to dig in overnight and escape on foot the next day. It was a strategic catastrophe.
The Battle of Mogadishu saw 18 special forces operators killed and 73 wounded.
Hundreds of Somalis were killed too, and it's likely the majority of these were civilians
caught in the crossfire. Tactically, the UN won, but it was their last hurrah
in Somalia. The world was shocked by the violence of the so-called peacekeepers, and US president
Bill Clinton pulled them out. Over the next two years, UN forces withdrew from Somalia.
But the war that had scoured the country for years was not yet over. Aidid died in battle
against another Somali rival in 1996, and his son took over where his daddy had left off.
Many were growing tired of conflict, however. Movements for peace were gaining momentum,
particularly in Somalia’s north. In the city of Garowe, locals leaders established the State of
Puntland and provided for its inhabitants. In the south, the Islamic Courts Union,
or ICU, instigated Sharia Law and brought people together under a shared religion.
This went against both the fledgling government forces and the powerful warlords.
A transitional government was established in 2004, but it did not have widespread support
and was disbanded after a massive brawl broke out during the parliamentary session.
Into the vacuum stepped the ICU, but this frightened American strategists, and the CIA
began funding the warlords the US military had just stopped fighting. The warlords, now flush
with cash, formed the so-called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. They
took the fight to the ICU, battling the Islamists for control of Mogadishu for a second time.
The CIA-backed warlords were crushed, but the respite allowed the transitional government,
known as the TFG, to rearm. With massive Ethiopian support, they pushed forces of the ICU southwards,
defeating and splintering them into sub-factions. One of these became the militant Islamist group
Al-Shabaab, and they continue to battle the central government forces to this day.
Peace still hasn’t fully returned to Somalia, and poverty still wracks the nation. For many,
dreams of greater Somalia hover just out of reach,
while others look to the Islamic past for solutions to issues of modernity. With the
climate shifting and Somalia becoming ever drier, the war may go on for years to come.
But what do YOU think? Is the whole situation a result of the colonial borders?
Would any of this have happened without the killer drought? Why do YOU think US
forces massively underestimated Aidid’s militia? Let us know in the comments!