it was a victory of sorts.
for 100 years somalis had suffered at the hands of western backed ethiopia.
the war was an immense effort by the somali people to liberate our lands.
we proved that we could go toe to toe with a country with 10 times our population and superpower support,and bring it to its knees.
the cubans were really significant, i`d put more score on the soviet pilots myself.
you should know that hundreds of cubans perished, and those that were buried on somali soil were dug up and left for the hyenas.
no fallen cuban invader was allowed to pollute our mother somali soil.
That is false,the cubans only lost 400 men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War
Ethiopia:
6,133 killed
10,563 wounded
3,867 captured or missing (including 1,362 deserters)
Cuba:
400 killed
South Yemen:
100 killed
Somalia was defeated by Cuba and Russia,the cubans and russians only wanted to expel Somalia of Ogaden and they defeated Somali Army.
The expected Ethiopian-Cuban attack occurred in early February; however, it was accompanied by a second attack that the Somalis did not expect. A column of Ethiopian and Cuban troops crossed northeast into the highlands between Jijiga and the border with Somalia, bypassing the SNA-WSLF force defending the Marda Pass. The attackers were thus able to assault from two directions in a "pincer" action, allowing the re-capture of Jijiga in only two days while killing 3,000 defenders. The Somali defense collapsed and every major Ethiopian town was recaptured in the following weeks. Recognizing that his position was untenable, Siad Barre ordered the SNA to retreat back into Somalia on 9 March 1978, although Rene LaFort claims that the Somalis, having foreseen the inevitable, had already withdrawn its heavy weapons.The last significant Somali unit left Ethiopia on 15 March 1978, marking the end of the war.
Following the withdrawal of the SNA, the WSLF continued their insurgency. By May 1980, the rebels, with the assistance of a small number of SNA soldiers who continued to help the guerilla war, controlled a substantial region of the Ogaden. However by 1981 the insurgents were reduced to sporadic hit-and-run attacks and were finally defeated.
The Ogaden War weakened the Somali military. Almost one-third of the regular SNA soldiers, three-eighths of the armored units and half of the Somali Air Force (SAF) were lost. The weakness of the Barre regime led it to effectively abandon the dream of a unified Greater Somalia. The failure of the war aggravated discontent with the Barre regime; the first organized opposition group, the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), was formed by army officers in 1979.
