page_title: Somali Armed Forces
section_title: 1960 to 1991
hierarchical_section_title: Somali Armed Forces / History / 1960 to 1991
caption_attribution_description: English: A Somali soldier poses for a photograph during the multinational joint service Exercise BRIGHT STAR '85.
context_page_description: 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.
  The SAF was initially made up of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police Force. In the post-independence period, it grew to become among the larger militaries in Africa. Due to Barre's increasing reliance on his own clans, repressive policies, and the Somali Rebellion, the military had by 1988 begun to disintegrate. By the time President Siad Barre fled in 1991, the armed forces had dissolved. An unsteady rebuilding process began after 2000. As of January 2014, the security sector is overseen by the Federal Government of Somalia's Ministry of Defence, Ministry of National Security, and Ministry of Interior and Federalism. Somaliland, Puntland, and Jubaland maintain their own separate military forces.
context_section_description: 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 (Darawishta Poliska or Darawishta) 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 (the former Italian Somaliland) 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 political 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 (NCOs), although dissatisfaction in the north lingered. Adam notes that in the aftermath of this mutiny, first armed forces commander General Daud Abdulle Hirsi (Hawiye/Abgaal) placed the most senior northerner, Colonel Mohamed Haji Ainashe, as head of the army in the north.
  The force was expanded and modernized after the rebellion with the assistance of Soviet and Cuban advisors. The Library of Congress writes that '[i]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 fixed a generous twenty-year repayment schedule.'
  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.
  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 (the day after Shermarke's funeral) 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 (SRC), the new government of Somalia. The country was renamed the Somali Democratic Republic. In 1971, he announced the regime's intention to phase out military rule.
  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 Gulei
caption: A Somali soldier poses for a photograph during the multinational joint-service Exercise Bright Star '85.
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