Peter Baxter - Somalia

Also by Peter Baxter:
Rhodesia: Last Outpost of the British Empire
France in Centrafrique: From Bokassa and Operation Barracuda to the days of the EUFOR
Selous Scouts: Rhodesian Counter-Insurgency Specialists
SAAFs Border War: The South African Air Force in Combat, 19661989

Co-published in 2013 by:

Helion & Company Limited
26 Willow Road
Solihull
West Midlands
B91 1UE
England
Tel. 0121 705 3393
Fax 0121 711 4075
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website: www.helion.co.uk

and

30 South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.
16 Ivy Road
Pinetown 3610
South Africa
email:
website: www.30degreessouth.co.za

Copyright Peter Baxter, 2013

Designed & typeset by SA Publishing Services ()
Cover design by Kerrrin Cocks

Printed for Helion & Co by Henry Ling Ltd., Dorchester, Dorset and for 30 South Publishers by Pinetown Printers, Durban, South Africa

ISBN (UK) 978-1-909384-61-3
ISBN (SA) 978-1-920143-60-2
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-910294-23-9

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, manipulated in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any mechanical, electronic form or by any other means, without the prior written authority of the publishers, except for short extracts in media reviews. Any person who engages in any unauthorized activity in relation to this publication shall be liable to criminal prosecution and claims for civil and criminal damages.

Front cover: Two members of the Botswana Defence Force search a building in the Bakaara Market, Mogadishu, in Operation Restore Hope.

GLOSSARY

AC-130 Lockheed gunship

ARFOR Army Force Somalia

AWWSS Authorized Weapons Storage Site

Black Sea A central market district in the heart of Aidids (SNA) sector of Somalia

C-130 Hercules transport aircraft

CENTCOM US Central Command

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CINCCENT Commander in Chief, US Central Command

COMUSFORSOM Command US Forces Somalia

CSAR combat search and rescue

HRO Humanitarian Relief Organization

HUMINT Human Intelligence

ISE Intelligence Support Element

JOC Joint Operations Centre

JSOC Joint Special Operations Command

JSOT Joint Special Operations Tactics

JSOTF Joint Special Operations Task Force

JTF Joint Task Force Somalia

K4 Kilometer 4, a key traffic circle in Mogadishu and a junction of several major roads

khat a narcotic plant widely used in Somalia Mad Mullah the name given to early Somali resistance leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan

MARFOR Marine Force Somalia

MEF Marine Expeditionary Force

MEU Marine Expeditionary Unit

NCO non-commissioned officer

NGO non-governmental organization

OAU Organization of African Unity

OPCON operational control

POTF Psychological Operations Task Force

QRF quick reaction force

Redcon 1 full alert level

RPG rocket-propelled grenade

Schutztruppe German native colonial unit

SEAL Sea/Air/Land US Naval Special Forces

skinny pejorative military term for Somali militiaman

SNA Somali National Alliance

SNF Somali National Front

SNM Somali National Movement

SPM - Somali Patriotic Movement

SSDF Somali Salvation Democratic Front

SSF Somali Salvation Front

TACON tactical control

Triangle of Death the most famine-affected region of Somalia, between Mogadishu, Baidoa and Bardera

UN United Nations

UNITAF United Task Force

UNOSOM United Nations Operation in Somalia

USAF United States Air Force

USC United Somali Congress

USFORSOM US Forces Somalia

USSOCOM United States Special Operations Command

German soldiers onboard an armoured personnel carrier (APC) on hand for the dedication of a well, which they dug for the Somalis. Germanys defence minister dedicated the well as part of his nations contribution to the relief effort.

INTRODUCTION

Me and my clan against the world, me and my brother against the clan, me against my brother

Somali proverb

In 1855, British soldier, explorer, author and essayist, Richard Francis Burton, attempted the first organized exploration of Somalia. He travelled in the company of a handful of fellow British army officers, including his long-time companion and part-time antagonist, John Speke, with whom he would later break over that great geographic conundrum of the time, the source of the Nile. The journey had no sooner begun, than the large travelling party was attacked by some 300 natives who overran the camp in the dead of night, creating general mayhem and severely injuring both Burton and Speke. Speke was wounded eleven times, and Burton himself suffered the very unpleasant experience of a spear through both cheeks, knocking out four teeth and piercing his palate. Thanks to a barb on the blade, Burton was unable to remove the head of the spear, which he then endured embedded in his face for several days until he was able to make his way to the British Red Sea port of Aden.

It is fair to assume that this experience would have jaded him somewhat in his opinions of the Somalis, but even with this in mind, and despite several Kiplingesque attempts to forgive the noble savage his savagery, his later published account, First Footsteps in East Africa, is rich with observations of the general violence, duplicity and debilitating self-interest that appeared to characterize the Somali clansman at the time.

In character, the Isa [a Somali clan] are childish and docile, cunning, and deficient in judgment, kind and fickle, good-humoured and irascible, warm-hearted, and infamous for cruelty and treachery.

Richard Francis Burton

John Hanning Speke

This outside view of Somalia has been similarly expressed in countless chronicles ever since, even those written under the rules of absolute political correctness. For example, US academic Jonathan Stevenson, one of a great many writers who have covered Somalia in recent years, opens an extremely well-observed narrative, Losing Mogadishu, with the remark that it is Somali culture that makes Somalis so singularly unmalleable, so reluctant to take guidance. He then goes on to freely paint a very bleak picture of a callous, individualistic, violent and intensely xenophobic society, caught at the genealogical crossroads of two dominant societies they regard Arabs as gifted brothers and black Africans as handicapped cousins and with inferiority as just one of a plethora of debilitating social complexes.