Somali Armed Forces
The Somali Armed Forces are the military forces of the Federal Republic of Somalia. Headed by the president as commander-in-chief, they are constitutionally mandated to ensure the nation's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
In 1990 the Armed Forces were made up of the Army, Air Force, Air Defence Force, and Navy. From the early 1960s to 1977, the period
when good relations existed between Somalia and the Soviet Union, the Armed Forces had the largest armored and mechanized force in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to Barre's increasing reliance on his own clan, splitting the Armed Forces along clan lines, and the Somali Rebellion, by 1988 they began to disintegrate. By the time President Siad Barre fled Mogadishu in January 1991, the last cohesive army grouping, the 'Red Berets,' had deteriorated into a clan militia.
An unsteady rebuilding process began after 2000, and gained pace after the Djibouti Agreement of 2008. The northeastern region of Puntland maintains its own separate military forces.
History
Middle Ages to colonial period
Historically, Somali society conferred distinction upon warriors and rewarded military acumen. All Somali males were regarded as potential soldiers, except for men of religion. Somalia's many sultanates each maintained regular troops. In the early Middle Ages, the conquest of [Shewa by the Ifat Sultanate ignited a rivalry for supremacy with the Solomonic dynasty.File:Hobyo Sultanate Cavalry And Fort.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The Sultanate of Hobyo's cavalry and fort
Many similar battles were fought between the succeeding Sultanate of Adal and the Solomonids, with both sides achieving victory and suffering defeat. During the protracted Ethiopian-Adal War, Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi defeated several Ethiopian Emperors and embarked on a conquest referred to as the Futuh Al-Habash, which brought three-quarters of Christian Abyssinia under the power of the Muslim Adal Sultanate. Al-Ghazi's forces and their Ottoman allies came close to extinguishing the ancient Ethiopian kingdom, but the Abyssinians managed to secure the assistance of Cristóvão da Gama's Portuguese troops and maintain their autonomy. However, both polities in the process exhausted their resources and manpower, which resulted in the contraction of both powers and changed regional dynamics for centuries to come. Many historians trace the origins of hostility between Somalia and Ethiopia to this war. Some scholars also argue that this conflict proved, through their use on both sides, the value of firearms such as the matchlock musket, cannons and the arquebus over traditional weapons.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Majeerteen Sultanate, Sultanate of Hobyo, Warsangali Sultanate and Dervish State employed cavalry in their battles against the imperialist European powers during the Campaign of the Sultanates.
In Italian Somaliland, eight "Arab-Somali" infantry battalions, the Ascari, and several irregular units of Italian officered dubats were established. These units served as frontier guards and police. There were also Somali artillery and zaptié units forming part of the Italian Royal Corps of Colonial Troops from 1889 to 1941. Between 1911 and 1912, over 1,000 Somalis from Mogadishu served as combat units along with Eritrean and Italian soldiers in the Italo-Turkish War. Most of these troops never returned home until they were transferred back to Italian Somaliland in preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
In 1914, the Somaliland Camel Corps was formed in British Somaliland and saw service before, during, and after the Italian invasion of the territory during World War II.
1960 to 1978
Just prior to independence in 1960, the Trust Territory of Somalia established a national army to defend the nascent Somali Republic's borders. A law to that effect was passed on 6 April 1960. Thus the Somali Police Force's Mobile Group was formed. 12 April 1960 has since been marked as Armed Forces Day. British Somaliland became independent on 26 June 1960 as the State of Somaliland, and the Trust Territory of Somalia followed suit five days later. On 1 July 1960, the two territories united to form the Somali Republic. After independence, the Darawishta merged with the former British Somaliland Scouts to form the 5,000 strong Somali National Army. The new military's first commander was Colonel Daud Abdulle Hirsi, a former officer in the British military administration's police force, the Somalia Gendarmerie. Officers were trained in the United Kingdom, Egypt and Italy. Despite the social and economic benefits associated with military service, the armed forces began to suffer chronic manpower shortages only a few years after independence.Merging British and Italian Somaliland caused significant controversy. The distribution of power between the two regions and among the major clans in both areas was a bone of contention. In December 1961, a group of British-trained northern non-commissioned officers in Hargeisa revolted after southern officers took command of their units. The rebellion was put down by other northern Noncommissioned officers, although dissatisfaction in the north lingered. Adam notes that in the aftermath of this mutiny, first armed forces commander General Daud Abdulle Hirsi placed the most senior northerner, Colonel Mohamed Haji Ainashe, as head of the army in the north.
By October 1962 British officials were reporting that there was a Northern Military Zone with its headquarters in Hargeisa, supervising two battalions in Hargisa and Burao, while in the south, Army HQ in Mogadishu supervised four battalions, at Mogadishu, Beletweyne, Galkayo, and Baidoa. These four battalions plus smaller units were to come under control of a planned Southern Military Zone.
The force was expanded and modernized after the rebellion with the assistance of Soviet and Cuban advisors. The Library of Congress wrote in the early 1990s that "n 1962 the Soviet Union agreed to grant a US$32 million loan to modernise the Somali army, and expand it to 14,000 personnel. Moscow later increased the amount to US$55 million. The Soviet Union, seeking to counter United States influence in the Horn of Africa, made an unconditional loan" and set a "generous twenty-year repayment schedule." However other sources date the Somali-Soviet discussions to October 1963 or later, and discuss how the United States, West Germany, Great Britain, and Italy tried and failed to get Somalia to accept a Western counteroffer through 1962 and 1963.
The army was tested in 1964 when the conflict with Ethiopia over the Somali-inhabited Ogaden erupted into warfare. On 16 June 1963, Somali guerrillas started an insurgency at Hodayo, in eastern Ethiopia, a watering place north of Werder, after Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie rejected their demand for self-government in the Ogaden. The Somali government initially refused to support the guerrilla forces, which eventually numbered about 3,000. However, in January 1964, after Ethiopia sent reinforcements to the Ogaden, Somali forces launched ground and air attacks across the border and started providing assistance to the guerrillas. The Ethiopian Air Force responded with punitive strikes across its southwestern frontier against Feerfeer, northeast of Beledweyne, and Galkayo. On 6 March 1964, Somalia and Ethiopia agreed to a cease-fire. At the end of the month, the two sides signed an accord in Khartoum, Sudan, agreeing to withdraw their troops from the border, cease hostile propaganda, and start peace negotiations. Somalia also terminated its support of the guerrillas.
Soviet advisors, among them General Vasily Shakhnovich, began to arrive in 1969. The Institute for Strategic Studies listed Somalia for the first time in its green-covered Military Balance 1970-71, estimating total armed forces at 12,000, of which 10,000 were in the Army and 1,750 in the Air Force. General Shakhnovich built a close relationship with Barre, and stayed until 1971. General Grigory Borisov served in the same position in 1973–76, writing a book about his experiences.
During the power vacuum that followed the assassination of Somalia's second president, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, the military staged a coup d'état on 21 October 1969 and took over office. Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, who had succeeded Hersi as Chief of Army in 1965, was installed as President of the Supreme Revolutionary Council, the new junta of Somalia. The country was renamed the Somali Democratic Republic.
In 1972, the National Security Court, headed by Admiral Mohamed Gelle Yusuf, ordered the execution of Siad Barre's fellow coup instigators, Major General Mohamed Aynanshe Guleid, Brigadier General Salaad Gabeyre Kediye and Lieutenant Colonel Abdulkadir Dheel Abdulle.
Kaplan wrote in 1976:
In mid-1976 the military command structure was simple and direct. Major General Mohammad Ali Samatar was not only commander of the National Army – and therefore commander of the organizationally subordinated navy and air force- but also secretary of state for defence and a vice president of SRC and thus a member of the major decision-making body of the government. Holding the two highest.. posts, he stood alone in the command structure between the army and President Siad, the head of state. When in July 1976 the SRC relinquished its power to the newly appointed SSRP, Samantar retained the portfolio of the Ministry of Defense. The country's real power appeared to be in the SSRP's Politburo, of which Samantar became a vice president. Before the military coup, command channels ran directly from the commander of the National Army to army sector commanders who exercised authority over military forces.. in the field, and combat units had been reorganized along Soviet lines. There is no indication that either the chain of command to lower echelons or the organisation of combat units has changed significantly since the coup.
In July 1976, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the army consisted of 22,000 personnel, 6 tank battalions, 9 mechanised infantry battalions, 5 infantry battalions, 2 commando battalions, and 11 artillery battalions. Two hundred T-34 and 50 T-54/55 main battle tanks had been estimated to have been delivered. The IISS emphasised that 'spares are short and not all equipment is serviceable.' The U.S. Army Area Handbook for Somalia, 1977 edition, agreed that the army comprised six tank and nine mechanised infantry battalions, but listed no infantry battalions, the two commando battalions, five field artillery, and five anti-aircraft battalions.
Three divisions were formed, and later took part in the Ogaden War. There is evidence that the divisions were formed as early as 1970; Mohamud Muse Hersi has been listed by somaliaonline.com as commander of the 21st Division from 1970 to 1972, and Muse Hassan Sheikh Sayid Abdulle as commander 26th Division in 1970–71.
File:Damagedsomalitank.jgp.jpg|thumb|left|Somali engineers repair a captured Ethiopian T-34/85 Model 1969 tank for use by the Western Somali Liberation Front in the Ogaden region, March 1978
Under the leadership of General Abdullah Mohamed Fadil, Abdullahi Ahmed Irro and other senior Somali military officials formulated a plan of attack for what was to become the Ogaden War in Ethiopia. This was part of a broader effort to unite all of the Somali-inhabited territories in the Horn region into a Greater Somalia. At the start of the offensive, the SNA consisted of 35,000 soldiers, and was vastly outnumbered by the Ethiopian forces. Somali troops seized the Godey Front on 24 July 1977, after Division 60 defeated the Ethiopian 4th Infantry Division. Godey's capture allowed Somalia to consolidate its hold on the Ogaden, concentrate its forces, and advance further to other regions of Ethiopia. The invasion reached an abrupt end with the Soviet Union's sudden shift of support to Ethiopia, followed by almost the entire communist Second World siding with the latter. The Soviets halted supplies to Barre's regime and instead increased the distribution of aid, weapons, and training to Ethiopia's newly communist Derg regime. General Vasily Petrov was assigned to restructure the Ethiopian Army. The Soviets also brought in around 15,000 Cuban troops to assist the Ethiopian military. By 1978, the Somali forces were pushed out of most of the Ogaden, although it would take nearly three more years for the Ethiopian Army to gain full control of Godey.
During the war battalions were succeeded by brigades. "During the war the standard infantry and mechanized infantry unit became the brigade, two to four battalions and having a total strength of 1,200 to 2,000." Also following the war, Abudwak became the base for Division 21.