Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, was a Somali politician and former military official who served as the first President of Puntland from 1998 to 2004. He also played a key role in establishing the Transitional Federal Government, which he led as President of Somalia from 2004 to 2008. Additionally, he was one of the founders of the rebel Somali Salvation Democratic Front.
Yusuf was a career soldier in the Somali National Army, participating in the 1964 Border War and Ogaden War against Ethiopia. After Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden War in 1978, he led a failed coup against President Siad Barre, marking the start of the Somali rebellion. Following the coup's failure, Yusuf established the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in Ethiopia and began fighting alongside Ethiopian forces against the Somali army. During the 1982 Ethiopian-Somali War, he led SSDF forces. Frustrated by the operation's failure and the SSDF's surrender to the Somali government, the Ethiopians jailed Yusuf until the Derg regime collapsed in 1991.
After his release, Yusuf returned to his home region and helped establish the Puntland government in 1998. He later joined an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords opposing the Somali Transitional National Government formed in 2000. During the Puntland crisis he had a violent power struggle against Jama Ali Jama over regional leadership. Yusuf attempted to extend his term after it expired, sparking a political crisis and the election of a new Puntland president, which Yusuf rejected. In May 2002, with Ethiopian military assistance, Yusuf ousted Jama after accusing him of ties to terrorism. During the conflict he was responsible for ordering the assassinations of civic leaders in Puntland such as Sultan Hurre.
In 2004, Yusuf became president of the Transitional Federal Government. He received Ethiopia's backing and approval, in exchange for dropping Somalia's long-standing claim to the Ogaden region. Despite widespread opposition within the TFG and without cabinet or parliamentary approval, Yusuf controversially requested Ethiopian troops to support his administration against the Islamic Courts Union during 2006. By the end of the Ethiopian military occupation in December 2008, much of the country had fallen to the insurgency and Yusuf was sanctioned by IGAD for illegally sacking the speaker of parliament. The TFG parliament moved to impeach Yusuf after accusing him of being a dictator. On 24 December 2008, he resigned from the presidency, leading to the dissolution of his government. After he resigned he was given political asylum in Yemen.
Yusuf died in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, on 23 March 2012.
Early life
Abdullahi Yusuf was born on 15 December 1934 in Galkayo, situated in the north-central Mudug region of Somalia. The city was at the time part of Italian Somaliland. His family hailed from the Omar Mahmoud sub clan of the larger Majeerteen Harti Darod clan.For his post-secondary education, Ahmed studied law at the Somali National University in Mogadishu. He later moved abroad to pursue Military Studies.
Ahmed was married to Hawa Abdi Samatar. The couple had two sons and two daughters in addition to six grandchildren.
Military career
Ahmed joined the colonial forces of the Trust Territory of Somaliland in 1950. In 1954, he was included in the first batch of Somali military personnel that was taken to Italy for Officer training. The batch included Aidid, Samatar, and Gabeyre. He was promoted to the post of commander in 1960. As a soldier, he participated in the 1964 war against the Ethiopia and was decorated for his actions of valor during the war.Ahmed obtained a degree in Military Topography from the M. V. 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. He received additional military training in Italy.
Between 1965 and 1968, he served as Somalia's military attaché to Moscow. On 15 October 1969, while paying a visit to the northern town of Las Anod, Somalia's then President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards. His assassination was quickly followed by a military coup d'état on 21 October 1969, in which the Somali Army seized power without encountering armed opposition – essentially a bloodless takeover. The putsch was spearheaded by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, who at the time commanded the army. For refusing to support Barre's seizure of power, Ahmed was imprisoned for several years by the new military regime.
In 1975, Ahmed was released from prison and appointed by Barre as the director of a governmental agency. He later commanded the Somali National Army's southern front in the Ogaden War against neighboring Ethiopia, with assistance from 60th division commandant Col. Abdullahi Ahmed Irro, as well as frontline deputies Col. Abdulkadir Berked of Begedi of Afgio and Col. Ahmed Ilgir of Burtinle serving as his deputies. Ahmed was assigned to lead the Negheille offensive in 1977, which extended from Bali in the southwest to the town of Negheille. For his efforts, Ahmed was again decorated for courage, but would remain a Colonel throughout his military career.
Somali Salvation Democratic Front
In 1978, together with a group of officials mainly from his own Majeerteen clan, Ahmed participated in an abortive attempt to overthrow Barre's dictatorial administration. The military coup d'état was originally planned for 12 April. However, it was instead hastily carried out a few days earlier, on 9 April, due to fears of potential leaks. Ahmed was at the time in the southern Gedo region and was unaware of the changes to the coup plan. He later learned of the failed putsch via a secured communication network, which contained a coded two sentence message from Col. Abdullahi Ahmed Irro reading "Wife Aborted", dated 11:00 am, 9 April 1978. Most of the people who had helped plot the coup were summarily executed, but Ahmed and several other colonels managed to escape abroad.Later that year, in adjacent Ethiopia, Ahmed and Hassan Ali Mire formed a rebel movement called the Somali Salvation Front, with Ahmed serving as chairman. The Somali Salvation Front would go on to absorb its predecessor the Somali Democratic Action Front. The organization was subsequently renamed the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in 1981 through a merger with the Somali Workers Party and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Somalia. It was the first of several opposition groups dedicated to ousting Barre's regime by force.
After opposing the Ethiopian government's claims of sovereignty over several Somali-inhabited areas that the SSDF had managed to seize control of from Barre's forces, Ahmed was detained by the local Ethiopian authorities in 1985. Mire was elected as the SSDF's new chairman the following year. Ahmed would remain imprisoned until his release in 1990, following the demise of Ethiopia's then-ruling Derg.
Ahmed subsequently returned to Somalia. In 1992, he marshalled forces to successfully expel an Islamist extremist group linked to Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya that had taken over Bosaso, a prominent port city and the commercial capital of the northeastern part of the country. He later served as a co-chairman of the National Salvation Council of Somalia, established in 1997.
President of Puntland
Abdullahi Yusuf led Somalia's autonomous Puntland region from 1998-2004. The region was largely peaceful under Yusuf's rule except from mid-2001 to mid-2002, when he was deposed over widespread objections to his attempt to lengthen his term of office.In 2000, Yusuf opposed the first attempt to restore a central state when the Transitional National Government was created that year at a conference of elders. Due to opposition from the country's many warlords, including Yusuf, the TNG's authority withered within months. He was a member of an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords that succeeded in undermining the TNG.
Puntland crisis (2001–2003)
In 2001 the Puntland crisis began as Abdullahi Yusuf's term as Puntland president came to a close. In August 2001, a general congress representing all major clans in Puntland elected Abdullahi Yusuf's political rival, Jama Ali Jama, as the new president. Jama's close ties to the Mogadishu-based Transitional National Government alarmed Ethiopia, which opposed the TNG and was determined to remove it. Yusuf refused to accept the election results, leading to violent clashes with Jama in Garowe. By December 2001, Ethiopian troops intervened in support of Yusuf. Yusuf had used the "war on terror" to justify the operation and claimed Jama supported Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya. In January 2002, Ethiopia intervened again, accusing Jama of harboring members of Al-Itihaad—a claim Jama denied. During May 2002, Yusuf defeated Jama and reasserted his control over Puntland. Fighting broke out against between forces loyal to Yusuf and Jama during January 2003.During this period Abdullahi Yusuf's forces were responsible for the assassination of civic leaders in Puntland, most notably Sultan Hurre during August 2002. Surre was a major opponent of Yusuf of extrajudicially executed by the security forces belonging to him. Yusuf's government accused Hurre of "association with extremist elements" and targeted him for arrest. While they had claimed his death was accidental, a journalist who had witnessed Surre's death described seeing a deliberate assassination.
Transitional Federal Government
Establishment and overview
On 10 October 2004, in a session held by the Transitional Federal Parliament in the neighbouring Kenyan capital of Nairobi, Ahmed was elected as President of the Transitional Federal Government, an interim federal administrative body that he had helped establish earlier in the year. He received 189 votes from the TFG Parliament, while the closest contender being, former Somali Ambassador to the United States Abdullahi Ahmed Addou, got 79 votes in the third round of voting. The then incumbent President of Somalia, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, peacefully withdrew his candidature. Ahmed was sworn in a few days later on 14 October 2004.The Ethiopian government heavily backed the presidency of Abdullahi Yusuf and the formation of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004 on the grounds that Yusuf would give up Somalia's long standing claim to the Ogaden. Before becoming president of the TFG during 2004, Abdullahi Yusuf was a member of an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords that had undermined a previous attempt at restoring a government in Somalia when the Transitional National Government formed in 2000. I.M. Lewis observes that with significant Ethiopian support, Abdullahi Yusuf was elected as the TFG president, and, under Ethiopian direction, he appointed a prime minister with connections to then-Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. These close connections to Addis Ababa were a driving force behind the invasion and provoked the ICU into later adopting a bellicose stance. In 2004, Yusuf made his first foreign visit as President when he travelled to Ethiopia. During this visit he requested 20,000 Ethiopian troops to back his government.
As President, Ahmed pledged to promote reconciliation and to set about rebuilding the country. However, his government was beset by internal disagreements and contentions with other stakeholders in Somalia. For example, he was at loggerheads with some warlords and government members over where the administration should be based. The President and Prime Minister opposed a move to Mogadishu, citing security reasons. Consequently, Ahmed along with his Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi and the Speaker of the Parliament Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden helped to relocate the Transitional Federal Institutions from Nairobi to the Somali cities of Jowhar and Baidoa, where the TFG resided until the government eventually took control of Mogadishu.
The majority of Somali society, including much of the newly formed Transitional Federal Government, deeply opposed any foreign military intervention on Somali soil. An African Union fact finding mission to Somalia in 2005 found that the overwhelming majority of Somalis rejected troops from neighboring states entering the country. Despite significant opposition within the TFG parliament, President Yusuf made the widely unpopular decision to invite Ethiopian troops to prop up his administration. As an institution, the TFG did not consent to or approve of the Ethiopian military intervention. No parliamentary approval was given for a decision openly opposed by a significant portion of the government.
Due to a lack of funding and human resources, an arms embargo that made it difficult to re-establish a national security force, and general indifference on the part of the international community, President Ahmed also found himself obliged to deploy thousands of troops from Puntland to Mogadishu to sustain the battle against insurgent elements in the southern part of the country. Financial support for this effort was provided by the autonomous region's government. This left little revenue for Puntland's own security forces and civil service employees, leaving the territory vulnerable to piracy and terrorist attacks.