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<TITLE>Death of a Warlord</TITLE>


<TITLE>Death of a Warlord</TITLE>

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<CENTER>Times Newspapers Limited 
August 3, 1996, Saturday</CENTER>
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<H2>Obituary: General Muhammad Farrah Aidid</H2>


General Muhammad Farrah Aidid, leader of the Somali National Alliance, died in Mogadishu on August 1 aged 59. He was born in Beledweyne, Somalia, on
December 15, 1936.

TO THE world's most powerful army he was a terrorist. To the hungry, proud
and desperate people that he led he was a redeemer. But however he will be
remembered, the death of the Somali warlord Muhammad Farrah Aidid marks the end of a tragic, violent chapter in the history of Africa, the United States and the United Nations.

Aidid died after being hit by two bullets during fighting in the central
Medina district of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Having been deserted last year by his closest allies, Aidid had become increasingly active as a front-line
commander of his troops in the state of constant war which has raged in the city since UN troops left Somalia to its fate in March 1995.

Aidid was an Italian-trained army general whose political ambitions evolved in response to the brutal 21-year dictatorship of Somali President Muhammad Siad Barre. Born the son of a camel herder in the central town of Belet Huen, Aidid'' was the nickname given to Muhammad Farrah Hassan by his family. In 1950 he
joined the army and was sent to a military academy in Italy, which was then
ruling southern Somalia under a UN mandate, while the northern part of the
country was under British rule.

At Somali independence in 1960 he became an officer in the newly-formed
army, and rose through the ranks until the military coup of October 21, 1969,
which brought General Siad Barre to power. Aidid was initially named as Barre's chief of military intelligence, but soon afterwards was jailed on suspicion of
plotting to seize power. He languished in prison until 1975.

Close confidantes of Aidid said that it was during his years in prison that he changed from being a promising career soldier to nursing thoughts of revenge against Barre's increasing brutality. While a prisoner of the regime,
Aidid became so hungry that he was forced to eat the soap he had been provided
with to wash himself before Muslim prayers.

The experience of prison is said to have intensified his manner and provoked irrational outbursts which he directed into plotting and vengefulness. Upon
being released in October 1975, Siad Barre attempted a sort of reconciliation,
using Aidid's military knowledge in an advisory role during Somalia's 1977
invasion of the ethnically Somali Ogaden region of Ethiopia.

Aidid then surprised his associates by accepting the post of Somali
ambassador to India. It was thought that he had accepted being sidelined by the increasingly paranoid Siad Barre. In fact he had other plans, and used his
period abroad to plan a return to Somalia.

Establishing contacts with other opponents of the Barre regime, particularly those from the Hawiye clan of which he was part, Aidid slowly assembled an
opposition movement which based itself in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, at that time under the control of the Marxist Haile Mengistu Mariam.

General Mengistu's war with Barre in the Ogaden had brought Somali-Ethiopian relations to breaking point. Opponents of the regime in Mogadishu were welcomed by the Ethiopian government until a rapprochement between the two
Governments in 1988 forced Aidid's United Somali Congress-Somali National
Alliance (USC-SNA) back into Somalia, precipitating the civil war which led to Barre's fall in 1991.

Barre's fall exposed the divisions within the USC-SNA. Aidid led a faction
dominated by his Hawiye sub-clan, the Habre Gedir, while another was led by his former ally, Ali Mahdi Muhammad and the Abgal, also a sub-clan of the Hawiye.

As inter-clan fighting gripped Somalia, famine stalked the country killing 350,000 people by December 1992, and leading the United Nations to despatch an
American-led military force, Operation Restore Hope, to assist in the
distribution of food. Aidid viewed the UN operation suspiciously. Relations
between himself and the UN special representative, the retired US Admiral
Jonathon Howe, deteriorated as Aidid faced increasing blame for the failure to
resolve the political and military crisis which had caused the famine.

On June 17, 1993, the UN Operation in Somalia, UNOSOM, issued a warrant
for Aidid's arrest when he was accused of ordering an ambush which left 24
Pakistani UN troops dead and their bodies mutilated. The warrant launched the
UN, and its American-led Quick Reaction Force, into a series of bloody and
intense battles with Aidid's gunmen, which turned Mogadishu into a war zone. for the following five months.

By a twist of fate, one of Aidid's sons, Hussein Farrah, who lived in Los
Angeles, served two weeks of active duty with the US Marine Corps in Somalia
but was returned home before US forces began chasing down his father.

On October 3, 18 American soldiers were killed after launching an attempt to capture Aidid which left 300 Somalis dead and Aidid still at large. The
subsequent publicity surrounding the mutilation of dead American soldiers whose bodies were filmed being dragged through the streets, forced President Clinton
to abandon the hunt for Aidid and plan a speedy American withdrawal from
Somalia. 

Victorious at having seen-off the might of the 30,000-strong American-led
force, Aidid pursued his objective of capturing those towns which had fallen to his rivals. Somalia was once again in the grip of the warlords whose lust for power had brought the country to its knees and dug the graves of thousands of
its citizens.

Throughout, Aidid refused to accept that he had become part of the problem
rather than a solution. A meeting with The General'', as his tough, loyal
henchmen called him, was always slightly unnerving. Though daubed a warlord'', Aidid's small, piercing eyes sparkled as brightly as the huge diamond he wore in a gold ring on his finger, giving him the air of a benevolent, greying
grandfather. He had a slight limp and he always carried an elaborate, carved
cane to help him to walk. He was always immaculately dressed, his neatly-ironed shirts remaining uncreased even as the country he hoped to rule collapsed into
war, famine and anarchy.

A UN force replaced the humiliated American troops, but could do little to
stop Aidid's ambitions, reluctant as they were to cross what has since become
known as the Mogadishu Line'', when peacekeepers become embroiled in war. The UN finally pulled out last year on March 2, bloodied and disappointed. Aidid
rejoiced, despite being deserted by his main backer Osman Ali Ato, whose split
with Aidid left him fighting a war on two fronts in the city.

Aidid then embarked on the military campaign which he was fighting against
Ali Mahdi Muhammad in the heart of the war-wracked capital. He was finally
struck by two bullets on July 24. Doctors were treating the wounds when he died of a liver infection and a heart attack.

Muhammad Farrah Aidid is survived by his third wife, Khadija Said Gurhan,
and by the 14 children of his three marriages.



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