Aydid, Gen. Muhammad Farah

Aydid, Gen. Muhammad Farah
▪ 1997

      (MUHAMMAD FARAH HASSAN), Somali faction leader (b. c. 1930, Beledweyne, Italian Somaliland—d. Aug. 1, 1996, Mogadishu, Somalia), was the most dominant of the clan leaders at the centre of the civil war that had raged in Somalia since 1991 in spite of UN intervention. In 1995, though his forces controlled only about half of the country, his supporters elected him president of all of Somalia. He remained, however, on the front lines in command of his troops. Aydid adopted an "official" birthday of Dec. 15, 1934. He was given military training in Italy, and after Somalia became independent (1960), he was promoted to captain. He received further training in the U.S.S.R., and his career advanced. When Muhammad Siad Barre seized power in 1969, Aydid was made chief of staff. Barre mistrusted him, however, and imprisoned him for six years, until 1975. Two years later Aydid's military skills were needed, so he was promoted to brigadier general and given an advisory role in Somalia's war with Ethiopia (1977-78). He continued as a military adviser until Barre, still feeling threatened, sent him to India as ambassador for five years (1984-89). Aydid then went to Italy and led one of the dissident groups plotting the overthrow of Barre. He returned to Somalia in 1991 after Barre had been forced from Mogadishu, the capital, but Ali Mahdi Muhammad, another factional leader, was named interim president. Warfare continued, first against Barre's forces and then between clans struggling for dominance. UN and U.S. troops were dispatched in 1992 to attempt to negotiate a peace agreement and facilitate the distribution of food, but in 1993, after his forces ambushed Pakistani UN troops and killed a number of them, Aydid was declared an outlaw. The attempt to capture him led to many more deaths, and—following publicity that included films of the mutilated bodies of U.S. soldiers being dragged through the streets—troops were withdrawn. Aydid then intensified his campaign against Ali Mahdi. He reportedly died of a heart attack a week after having been wounded in battle.

▪ 1994

      Shortly after 24 Pakistani peacekeeping troops were killed in a June 5, 1993, ambush in Somalia, the man thought to be responsible for the attack, clan leader Gen. Muhammad Farah Aydid, became the UN's first "wanted man." Posters promising a $25,000 reward for his capture rained on Mogadishu, part of a manhunt involving thousands of UN troops, including elements of the U.S. Army's counterterrorist Delta Force. Large-scale assaults on southern Mogadishu strongholds of Aydid's Habar Gadir subclan failed to result in the capture of the warlord, who went into hiding for more than 90 days. A folk hero to some for his role in the overthrow of longtime dictator Gen. Muhammad Siad Barre in January 1991, a tyrant and thief to others, Aydid was viewed by UN officials as an ally during Operation Restore Hope's efforts to relieve the suffering of those afflicted by famine. Events and policies had shifted so much in Somalia, however, that in December Aydid, the former "outlaw," was being flown to Ethiopia in a U.S. military airplane to meet with other Somali clan leaders.

      Born in Italian Somaliland, Muhammad Farah Hassan was given a customary alternative surname by his mother. In Somali the name Aydid means "one with no weaknesses" or "he who will not be insulted." A shepherd in his youth, Aydid received military training in Italy and during the 1950s served as the chief of Mogadishu's colonial police. Officer training in the Soviet Union in the early '60s led to a commission in Somalia's new national army and, in 1969, to the position of chief of staff. However, Barre, a member of the Darod clan, mistrusted Aydid and jailed him for six years in the early '70s. Released and given a command during the 1977-78 war with Ethiopia, Aydid served as a military adviser until Barre, still threatened by the general's presence, named him ambassador to India in 1984. Five years later Aydid joined the opposition, eventually leading attacks that drove the dictator from Mogadishu. In the interclan warfare that followed, Aydid's Somali National Alliance faction of the United Somali Congress and another Hawiye subclan and faction of the USC, the Abgal, nearly destroyed Mogadishu as they battled to control it, with the Habar holding on to southern Mogadishu.

      Meanwhile, some of Aydid's family immigrated to North America. Indeed, one of his sons, a U.S. Marine reservist, was sent to Somalia as part of the UN mission. In October 1993—after the U.S. in effect called off the manhunt following the deaths of 18 U.S. servicemen in a disastrous UN assault—the general reemerged, proposed a cease-fire, and in a press conference shortly thereafter released two captured servicemen, an American and a Nigerian. Dressed more like a businessman than a fugitive, Aydid, however, had not lost his combative resolve or his xenophobic rhetoric. (JEFF WALLENFELDT)

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Somalia — Somalian, adj., n. /soh mah lee euh, mahl yeuh/, n. an independent republic on the E coast of Africa, formed from the former British Somaliland and the former Italian Somaliland. 9,940,232; 246,198 sq. mi. (637,653 sq. km). Cap.: Mogadishu.… …   Universalium

  • United Nations — 1. an international organization, with headquarters in New York City, formed to promote international peace, security, and cooperation under the terms of the charter signed by 51 founding countries in San Francisco in 1945. Abbr.: UN Cf. General… …   Universalium

  • United States — a republic in the N Western Hemisphere comprising 48 conterminous states, the District of Columbia, and Alaska in North America, and Hawaii in the N Pacific. 267,954,767; conterminous United States, 3,022,387 sq. mi. (7,827,982 sq. km); with… …   Universalium

  • AFRICAN AFFAIRS — ▪ 1994 Introduction       The subcontinent s 48 states experienced a year of promise and disappointment. A new state, Eritrea, was born in May; three serious violent conflicts were halted with cease fire agreements (Rwanda, Liberia, and… …   Universalium

  • Military Affairs — ▪ 2009 Introduction        Russia and Georgia fought a short, intense war in 2008, fueling global fears of a new Cold War. On August 7 Georgia launched an aerial bombardment and ground attacks against its breakaway province of South Ossetia.… …   Universalium

  • Calendar of 1993 — ▪ 1994 January January 1       Czechoslovakia now two nations. What had been the single nation of Czechoslovakia officially became two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Vaclav Havel, the former president of Czechoslovakia, and… …   Universalium

  • Calendar of 1996 — ▪ 1997 JANUARY JANUARY 1       King Fahd cedes power       Still experiencing the effects of a stroke suffered in November 1995, Saudi Arabia s King Fahd, who also held the post of prime minister, ceded temporary power to Crown Prince Abdullah,… …   Universalium

  • New World Disorder — ▪ 1994 by Daniel Schorr       My friend Flora Lewis summed up the year 1991 in these pages, with appropriate tentativeness, as a time of transition. She noted the fears and uncertainties that had started cropping up in the wake of the collapse of …   Universalium

  • List of political families — This is a partial listing of prominent political families.Royal families are not included, unless certain later descendants have played political roles in a republican structure (e.g. Cakobau Family of Fiji). See also Family… …   Wikipedia

  • Calendar of 1995 — ▪ 1996 January January 1       Cardoso assumes office       Having won some 54% of the ballots cast in the October 1994 election, Fernando Cardoso took the oath of office as president of Brazil. As chief executive of South America s largest… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”