Monument of Imam Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, Mogadishu, Somalia
Imam Ahmad was born near Zeila, a port city located in northwestern Somalia (then part of Adal, a Muslim state tributary to the Christian Ethiopian Solomonic dynasty), and married Bati del Wambara, the daughter of Mahfuz, governor of Zeila. When Mahfuz was killed returning from a campaign against the Ethiopian emperor Lebna Dengel in 1517, the Adal sultanate lapsed into anarchy for several years, until Imam Ahmad killed the last of the contenders for power and took control of Harar.
In retaliation for an attack on Adal the previous year by the Ethiopian general Degalhan, Imam Ahmad invaded Ethiopia in 1529. Although his troops were fearful of their opponents and attempted to desert upon news that the Ethiopian army was approaching, Imam Ahmad maintained the discipline of most of his men, defeating Emperor Lebna Dengel at Shimbra Kure that March. (source Wikipedia)
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Sayid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
Hassan grew up among the pastoralists who were good herdsmen and warriors and who tended and used camels as well as horses. Young Hassan’s hero was his maternal grandfather, Sade Mogan, who was a great warrior chief. In addition to being a good horseman, by the age of eleven, Hassan had learned the entire Qur’an by heart (he was a hafiz), and displayed all the qualities of a promising leader. He continued his religious education. In 1875, his grandfather died. Hassan was shocked by this loss. After 1875, he worked as a Qur’anic teacher for two years. His thirst for Islamic learning was so intense that he left his job and devoted about ten years to visiting many famous centres of Islamic learning including Harar and Mogadishu and even some centres in Sudan.
Hassan received education from as many as seventy-two Somali and Arab religious teachers. In 1891, returning to his home, he married an Ogadeni woman. Three years later, along with two of his uncles and eleven other companions some of whom were his maternal kin, he went to Mecca to perform Hajj. The party stayed there for a year and half and came under the charismatic influence of the newly-developing Saalihiya order under the leadership of the great Sudanese mystic, Mohammed Salih. Hassan received initiation and very rigorous spiritual training under Salih. From this experience, Hassan emerged a changed man — spiritually transformed, ’shaken and over-awed’, but determined to spread the teachings of the Saalihiya order in Somalia.
Hassan (by now better known by his honorific title of “Sayyid”) patched up forces temporarily by paying huge blood monies. This frightened the British-protected North Somali pastorals. Towards the end of 1900, Ethiopian Emperor Menelik proposed a joint action with the British against the Dervish. Accordingly, British Lt. Col. E.J. Swayne assembled a force of 1,500 Somali soldiers led by 21 European officers and started from Burco on 22 May 1901, while an Ethiopian army of 15,000 soldiers started from Harar to join the British forces intent on crushing the 20,000 Dervish fighters (of whom 40 percent were cavalry).
During 1901 and 1904, the Dervish army inflicted heavy losses to their enemies – the Ethiopians and the British as well as the Italian forces. “His successes attracted to his banner even Somalis who did not follow his religious beliefs.” On 9 January 1904 at the Jidaale (Jidballi) plain the British Commander, General Charles Egerton killed 7,000 Dervish. This defeat forced Sayyid and his remaining men to flee to country.
(source Wikipedia)
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General Mohamed Farrah Aidid
General Mohamed Farrah Aidid (Somali: Maxamed Faarax Caydiid, Arabic: محمد فرح عيديد) (December 15, 1934 – August 2, 1996) was a influential and powerful Somali military leader. He served as the President of Somalia from 1995 to 1996. He was the chairman of United Somali Congress (USC) and later Somali National Alliance (SNA), who drove Siad Barre’s dictatorial regime from the capital, Mogadishu and eventually from Somalia altogether. Later he challenged the presence of United Nations and United States troops in the country. General Aidid was one of the main targets of Operation Restore Hope, the United Nations and United States military operation that came to the country to provide humanitarian aid and to break the military siege. He became General of Somalia for a short period after forcing US forces to abandon the country in 1993.
Aidid was born in the Habar Gidir clan of the Mudug region of Somalia. He was educated in Rome and Moscow and served in the Italian colonial police force in the 1950s. Later he rose in the military to the rank of general and served in the 1977-78 Ogaden War with Ethiopia. Aidid also served as a Minister and as Somali ambassador to India before finally being appointed intelligence chief.
Barre suspected Aidid of planning a coup d'état and had him imprisoned for six years as means of pre-emption. In 1991, Aidid's USC did indeed manage to overthrow Barre, and the former, as leader of the United Somali Congress, emerged as a major force in the ensuing civil war.
On October 3, 1993, by the order of President Bill Clinton, a force of United States Army Rangers and Delta Force operators set out to capture several officials of Aidid's militia in an area of the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, controlled by him (as portrayed in the film Black Hawk Down). Although technically successful, with the capture of several "tier-one personalities", the operation did not completely go as planned, between 500 and 1500 Somalis, as well as 18 American soldiers and 1 Malaysian soldier, died as a result in the First Battle of Mogadishu.
The United States withdrew its forces soon afterwards and the United Nations left Somalia in 1995.
Aidid was declared the official President of Somalia in June 1995, but his government was not internationally recognized. Indeed, within Somalia and even within Mogadishu, his control was fiercely fought over, especially by Ali Mahdi Muhammad.
Aidid died on August 1, 1996 as a result of gunshot wounds sustained a week earlier in a fight with competing factions.
