Notes

• [1]
  Some studies went so far as to condense the USC into an Abgaal and Habar Gidir movement (Ssereo 2003: 35). Not necessarily an exclusive Hawiye movement, the USC “originally included multiple clans but eventually concentrated on providing security and pursuing the interests of the Hawiye kin group” (Duffield 2013: 15).
• [2]
  The estimate given by the international NGOs and the CIA that one third of the population of the capital was fully armed was very conservative. An American correspondent conversant with the Somali issues observed in Mogadishu in the early 1990s that those armed appeared to be more numerous than those unarmed (Khalid 1998: 52-95).
• [3]
  Interview with General Osman Haji Omar (“Falco”), telephone conversation, 19 June 2014; interview with Abdullahi Mohamed Geeddi (“Khaddaafi”), London, UK, 29 March 2014. For further details, see Besteman (1996), Brons (2001), Hashim (1997), Kusow (1994), Omar (1992).
• [4]
  Prior to being toppled, Siad Barre called his wider clan-group to fend off his regime and, when such clannish attempts, famously known as Darbi Daarood (the Daarood Fence) were not materialised, he ensured—as he previously pledged—that no state system worth seizing would be captured behind him (The Indian Ocean Newsletter, 1990, p. 4). As D. Rothchild (1995: 66) reported: “Heavy fighting took place in the streets of the capital, involving protracted battles between pro-Barre members of the D[a]aro[o]d clan and the predominantly Hawiye USC members.” As Lewis (1994) also noted, Siad Barre’s “call on the Daarood to kill Hawiye in Mogadishu” was duly responded to by militias belonging to his immediate clan, Mareehaan, his mother’s, Ogaadeen, and his son-in-law’s, Dhulbahante (the so-called MODH coalition). Not only the MODH, but also many members of the Majeerteen—a clan initially opposed to his rule—joined Siad Barre’s ranks in the midst of the popular uprising that ousted him (Aroma 2005b: 165; Compagnon 1990: 31; Gassem 1994: 73-74). For witness statements of several former senior regime officials, see Dualeh (1994: 145-154), Ghalib (1995: 211-213). One vivid witness account on how Siad Barre fled the Villa Somalia was provided by Afrah (1991).
• [5]
  In a commentary on 1991 Somalia, Abdi Samatar denounces the USC and the SNM but says nothing about the SSDF or any other armed opposition movement. Other observers have also critically attacked the armed opposition groups (Compagnon 1998: 73-89; Mahadalla 1998: 167). For an earlier anti-opposition movement diatribe, see Sheikh-Abdi (1980). On the contrary, Bakonyi (2009) provides an interesting study synthesising the armed movements and their moral economy. By narrowing down her study to focus on how fighters were mobilised, she traces the patterns of violence in Somalia between 1988 and 1992. For a detailed appraisal on the history of the Somali armed groups, see the case study on the SNM, SSDF and USC by Ingiriis (2017).
• [6]
  Prunier (1990: 108), who travelled with the SNM fighters in the bush, has noted meeting Hawiye officers and soldiers defected to the SNM in the 1980s.
• [7]
  Interview with Professor Omar Hassan Gaalaguul,” VOA Somali, 19 October 2009; telephone interview with Mohamed Jili’ow Teenis, 1 July 2014; The Indian Ocean Newsletter (1989: 3).
• [8]
  Telephone interview with Jama Mohamoud Ali, 5 January 2015.
• [9]
  Telephone interview with Mohamed Jili’ow Teenis, 1 July 2014.
• [10]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016. Bakonyi (2010: 437) erroneously includes the Hiiraan region in the SSDF areas predominantly inhabited by the Majeerteen clan. On the contrary, the SSDF movement, which was dominated by the Omar Mohamoud sub-clan, counted on Northern Mudug and parts of the southern Nugaal for support. The majority of the Majeerteen people in the Bari region, mainly the Osman Mohamoud and the Ali Saleebaan sub-clans, as well as the less numerous Bi’iidyahan and Reer Mohamoud, were supporting Siad Barre.
• [11]
  For a detailed analysis, see Ingiriis (2016b).
• [12]
  Interviews with SNM war veterans, Hargeysa, 14-16 July 2016.
• [13]
  His name is also spelled as Aidid, Aydid, Aydiid or even in Somali as Caydiid or Ceydiid. In this article, we use Aideed not only to capture the long vowel of the name but also to allow others to easily pronounce.
• [14]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [15]
  Ibid.
• [16]
  Telephone interview with Colonel Muhiddiin Mo’allim Osman “Muhiddiin Badar,” 7 July 2014.
• [17]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016; telephone interview with Colonel Muhiddiin Mo’allim Osman “Muhiddiin Badar,” 7 July 2014; telephone interview with Colonel Omar Saleebaan, 25 December 2014.
• [18]
  Interviews with SNM war veterans, Hargeysa, 14-16 July 2016.
• [19]
  “Ku: Guddiga Odayaasha Shirka Leh” (a handwritten letter written by General Mohamed Farah Aideed in response to a letter sent to him by the USC businessmen in Mogadishu). Copy on file with the author.
• [20]
  Telephone interview with Colonel Muhiddiin Mo’allim Osman “Muhiddiin Badar,” 7 July 2014.
• [21]
  Interviews with former USC activists in Rome, 23-26 October 2018. Telephone interview with Abdi Farah Jama “Abdi Dheere,” 31 July 2014. The former Somalia officer for Amnesty International, Martin Hill, who worked with him as a human rights defender, insisted that Ismail Jimale was not part of the USC establishment (telephone interview with Martin Hill, 6 June 2014).
• [22]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [23]
  Interview with General Mohamed Nuur Galaal, Mogadishu, 20 September 2015.
• [24]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016; telephone interview with Ishaaq Nuur Hassan, 25 December 2014; telephone interview with Colonel Omar Saleebaan, 25 December 2014.
• [25]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [26]
  For similar observations in Sierra Leone, see Keen (2005: 74) and Richards (1996: 136). Nevertheless, unlike Sierra Leone, there was no forced conscription in the USC. Rather, there were voluntary fighters as mirrored in other African armed movements. A noteworthy exception was during Siad Barre’s era where the Bantu/Jareer communities in southern Somalia were forcefully conscripted into the army in the 1980s to fight in Northwest Somalia (present-day Somaliland).
• [27]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [28]
  Telephone interview with Engineer Ahmed Warsame Abtidoon, 25 December 2014; telephone interview with Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Darmaan, 2 July 2011; telephone interview with Ishaaq Nuur Hassan, 25 December 2014.
• [29]
  Axmed M. Silyano (sic), “A Proposal to the Somali National Movement on a Framework for a Transitional Government in Somalia” (London, March 1991: 3). Copy on file with the author.
• [30]
  Telephone interview with General Elmi Sahal Ali, 23 June 2014; telephone interview with Mohamed Goodah Barre, London, 6 July 2014; telephone interview with Mohamed Sheikh Mohamoud Guuleed “Ga’madheere,” 3 September 2014; telephone interview with Ahmed Mohamed Weheliye “Ahmed Hiji,” 29 August 2014; telephone interview with Sheikh Ali Haji Yusuf, 3 September 2014; The Indian Ocean Newsletter (1991: 4).
• [31]
  Tainted potential names of an unending list were General Hussein Kulmiye Afrah, General Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed “Liiqliiqato,” General Mohamed Sheikh Osman, Abdullahi Ahmed Addow, Abdikassim Salaad Hassan, many of whom went underground to save their lives in 1991, albeit few had come to side with either Ali Mahdi or Aideed. Yet why Hussein Bood, who was more experienced than Ali Mahdi, was not selected president is still striking. “[K]ulan taariikhi ah MW Cali Mahdi, Dr Cabduqasim, Dr Cabdullahi Caddow, Isman M. Rooble & Shikh. C. Maxamud,” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GwYEMBQK3I>, (00:01-23:35), accessed 25 May 2019.
• [32]
  Interviews with SNM war veterans, Hargeysa, 14-16 July 2016.
• [33]
  It the end, Egaal welcomed the armed resistance movements by supporting their struggle in order to be part of the new political post-Siad Barre arrangement. See “Warqaddii Cigaal Qoray 1990kii,” Xog-Ogaal, Thursday 29 September 2011, p. 6.
• [34]
  As one Somali scholar put it: “Ali Mahdi is too weak and feckless to rule unruly Somalis. Clearly, [Aideed] was the man of the hour” (Samatar 1997: 126). In a recent research workshop at Addis Ababa University, Professor Medhane Taddese reiterated the perceptive precision that General Aideed could reconstitute a unified Somali state if given the chance by the international community (author’s notes, Addis Ababa, 21 March 2016). In another research conference at the University of Oxford, an Oromo academic specialising in the Horn of Africa has pointed out that Aideed was the only Somali leader capable of pacifying Somalia in 1991 (author’s notes, St Anthony’s, Oxford, December 2014). These were observations also made by President Museveni, President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, Libya’s Colonel Mu’ammar al-Ghaddafi and the then UN Ambassador to Somalia Mohamed Sahnoun (“KeydMedia History Clips - General M. Farrah Aidid with Yoweri Museveni & Amb. Sahnoun – 1992,” <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwpYbNqNYkk>, (22:00–22:20), accessed on 2 June 2019, “General M. Farrah Aidid & Ambassador M. Sahnoun Speaking to the Somalis—1992,” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjT_6WpBApQ>, (00:17–18:57), accessed on 2 June 2019. Similar conclusions were also made by the erstwhile American Ambassador to Somalia Robert Oakley, his deputy John Hirsch and his top most senior military adviser General Anthony Zinni, as well as two distinguished American Professors Tom Farer and Harold Marcus, in addition to John Drysdale, a British scholar, who had consulted the post-colonial civilian Somali administration and the French specialist on Somalia Roland Marchal (Clancy 2004; Drysdale 2001: chap. 2-3; Farer 1993; Hirsch & Oakley 1995; Marcus 1995; and my interview with Roland Marchal, by email, 13 January 2015). Similar empirical observations can also be drawn from conclusions generated not merely by Aideed’s admirers but also by his adversaries. One of Siad Barre’s grandsons, Siad Ahmed Saleebaan, the son of General Ahmed Saleebaan Dafle (Siad Barre’s son-in-law), once confided to this author that he became disillusioned about Somalia the day Aideed died because he believed he would (re)unite Somalia again (author’s notes, Brussels, March 2004).
• [35]
  op. cit., Silyano (sic), “A Proposal to the Somali National Movement.”
• [36]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [37]
  Telephone interview with Ali Mahdi Mohamed, 15 June 2014.
• [38]
  Interview with Omar Salaad Elmi, email, 9 January 2015; interview with Abdulkadir Ya’kub Farah, Cardiff, UK, 18 September 2014.
• [39]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [40]
  Like the USC, the revival of the SSDF in early 1990s produced two competing leaders: General Mohamed Abshir Muuse, a long-time police commissioner of the post-colonial period, versus Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a onetime SSDF military commander. See War-Torn Society Project, “Northeast Somalia, Regional Reports, Bari Region, Nugaal Region, North Mudug Region,” May 1998. Unpublished report in the possession of the author.
• [41]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
• [42]
  Somali society consists of the Dir, the Isaaq, the Hawiye, Digil-Mirifle and the Daarood. There are also countless other communities. Ali Mahdi and Aideed belonged to the Hawiye clan-group, though to different clans within it.
• [43]
  Rothchild (1995: 67) also portrays the war as one among “personalities.” See also Omaar (1992: 233).
• [44]
  Interviews with the USC war veterans, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016; Africa Watch (1992b: 7).
• [45]
  Telephone interview with Ali Haashi Dhoorre, 1 August 2014; telephone interview with Colonel Omar Saleebaan, 25 December 2014.
• [46]
  The notion of “our time to eat” was well developed in Bayart (2013). See also Branch, Cheeseman & Gardner (2010) and Wrong (2009).
• [47]
  Telephone interview with Colonel Omar Saleebaan, 25 December 2014.
• [48]
  Video available on Subkane.flv, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l17qeaEIX8k>, (min. 03:49 – 04:37), accessed on 9 September 2014.
• [49]
  It seems that Africa Watch (1992a: 4) underestimates the number of deaths in this war in documenting that 14,000 people were killed. In another report from the same year, Africa Watch cited the ICRC field report which stated that 30,000 were killed (compare with Africa Watch 1992b: 5). The latter report describes the war as “the most bloody and sustained” in the capital’s history (ibid.: 6). A diary of this war was produced by a journalist who was in the town and seems to have agreed on the findings of the last report (Afrah 1993). The editor of the Horn of Africa journal also portrayed this as a war between “the unruly Hawiye mobs slaughtering one another in Mogadishu” (Samatar 1991b: 139).
• [50]
  Video, “Keydmedia History Clips—General M. Farrah Aidid with Yoweri Museveni & Amb. Sahnoun – 1992,” <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwpYbNqNYkk>, (min 22:00-22:20), accessed on 5 August 2014.
• [51]
  See videos “Caydiid iyo Cali Mahdi 1’ Hawlgalkii Rajo soo celinta,” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00sMoitZnoA>, (min 00:10-02:40), accessed on 5 January 2015; “Cali Mahdi iyo Ceydiid,” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA3od-0h0lo>, (min 00:03-08:53), accessed on 5 January 2015.
• [52]
  “Xasuus Golahii Dowladii Salbalaar,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lTwRAcO_XU, (min. 04:30-13:30), accessed on 4 August 2014.
• [53]
  United Somali Congress (USC) Political Programme; Handwritten letter by General Aideed; interview with General Aideed, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwC7nFfHbK8, (min. 02:54-03:50), accessed on 29 December 2014; “Dowladii USC 1991,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCHpPqOWvRg, (min. 1:11:52-1:20:50), accessed on 29 December 2014.
• [54]
  Somaliland and Puntland followed two different state-building trajectories.
• [55]
  Interview with General Aideed, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwC7nFfHbK8, (min. 02:54-03:50), accessed on 29 December 2014. General Aideed called on Aden Abdulle Osman “Aden Adde,” the first president of the Republic of Somalia, to attend his reconciliation conference ( Himilo 1995a: 3, 1995b: 3), a suggestion that he was seeking more legitimacy for his presidency.
• [56]
  Explaining Aideed’s attempts at conquering the whole of Somalia, Luling (1997) wrote, after returning from a fieldwork in Mogadishu in the early 1990s, that Aideed was determined to unite the whole of Somalia to become its ruler through military means. As she put it: “This was Caydiid’s method perhaps one he saw as compelled by the supreme need to unite the country” (ibid.: 299). Said Samatar, a Somali scholar who long opposed to Aideed, came to the similar conclusion—upon renouncing his earlier position on Aideed in an interview conducted in Somali language—that Aideed had encountered a clan burden that Meles Zenawi and other armed rebel leaders in the Horn of Africa had not experienced (http://www.wardheernews.com, accessed on 9 January 2015).
• [57]
  The Somali scholar H. Adam (1992: 20) wrote that the minute Siad Barre fled Mogadishu, the Italian Ambassador Mario Sica provided a destructive advice to Ali Mahdi to proclaim himself president before General Aideed claimed the position for himself.