Why did Siad Barre retreat?

[hydrogen]

He completely wiped out Ethiopia and their soviet buddies but was reduced to retreated for some reason? The enemy lost so much in the war whereas Siad Barre didn't. I wish he had chemical weapons, sizzle those f-king ethios and teach them how to cook their raw meat. The fact that we have to visit Aids ababa to meet their leaders just shows what low levels of humanity we've reduced ourselves to.

Loses:

Ethiopia:
6,133 killed[10]
10,563 wounded[10]
3,867 captured or missing (including 1,362 deserters)[10][11]
Cuba:
400 killed[11]
South Yemen:
100 killed[11]
USSR:
33 dead and missing[12]
Equipment losses:
23 Aircraft[10]
139 tanks[10]
108 APCs[10]
1,399 vehicles[10]

VS

Somalia:
6,453 killed[10]
2,409 wounded[10]
275 captured or missing[10]
Equipment losses:
28 Aircraft[10] (1/2 of Air force)
72 tanks[10]
30 APCs[10]
90 vehicles[10]

"After failing to get support within the Organization of African Unity, Somalia declared war on Ethiopia in 1964"

Somalia should tip tow around this cheap, starving organization. I've never trusted sub-human niggers and never will. All they're good for is being slaves.

[DonCorleone]

this is when he first started to betray somalis and not give a fuck
the bigger question is, is why did the onlf start in 1994 instead of just after the war, and why be created in Yemen, Ethiopia's allies during the galbeed/ogadeen war???

I think ethio paid him to fuck up the nation

[hydrogen]

Ethiopia has always been out for us since the end the war. We could of wiped the floor with them had they not been backed, I mean, why would the USSR help these raw meat eaters? I don't even see the benefit. The AU was obviously shitting it's pants (had they afforded any) and didn't even many any border sanctions.

Question is, where there chemical weapons at this time? If he sprayed the skies with sulfur, I'm sure it would of been easier.

[DonCorleone]

Ethiopia has always been out for us since the end the war. We could of wiped the floor with them had they not been backed, I mean, why would the USSR help these raw meat eaters? I don't even see the benefit. The AU was obviously shitting it's pants (had they afforded any) and didn't even many any border sanctions.

Question is, where there chemical weapons at this time? If he sprayed the skies with sulfur, I'm sure it would of been easier.

maybe he didnt want to waste the land away, we can reclaim it later...

in the next great somali expansion.

[hydrogen]

Ethiopia has always been out for us since the end the war. We could of wiped the floor with them had they not been backed, I mean, why would the USSR help these raw meat eaters? I don't even see the benefit. The AU was obviously shitting it's pants (had they afforded any) and didn't even many any border sanctions.

Question is, where there chemical weapons at this time? If he sprayed the skies with sulfur, I'm sure it would of been easier.

maybe he didnt want to waste the land away, we can reclaim it later...

in the next great somali expansion.

We should play the oppressed card this time, it's the new thing.

We'll advertise the oppressed Ogadan region and how the Ummah should support us lol..

[luis1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethio-Somali_War

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. Mil Mi-6 helicopters airlifted Cuban BMD-1 and ASU-57 armored vehicles behind enemy lines. 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 their 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

[luis1]

http://reference.allrefer.com/country-g ... ia109.html

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had started supporting the Marxist-Leninist regime that had emerged in Ethiopia while simultaneously attempting to maintain Somalia as a client state. After its attempts at mediation failed, the Soviet Union decided to abandon Somalia. In August 1977, the Soviet Union suspended arms shipments to Siad Barre's regime and accelerated military deliveries to Ethiopia. Three months later, Somalia renounced the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, expelled all Soviet advisers, broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, and ejected all Soviet personnel from Somalia.

Following Moscow's decision to support Addis Ababa, Ethiopia received massive amounts of Soviet arms. Along with Soviet military advisers, about 15,000 Cuban combat troops also arrived. By early 1978, this aid had turned the tide of war in Ethiopia's favor. By March 9, 1978, when Siad Barre announced the withdrawal of the Somali armed forces from the Ogaden, the Somali military had lost 8,000 men--one-third of the SNA, three-quarters of its armored units, and half of the Somali Air Force (SAF).

For all intents and purposes, Ethiopia's victory during the Ogaden War ended Mogadishu's dream of recreating Greater Somalia

http://reference.allrefer.com/country-g ... ia110.html

The Ogaden War: Performance and Implications of Defeat

The SNA never recovered from its defeat in the Ogaden War. The battles to retake and then defend the Ogaden stripped the Somali armed forces of many troops, much of their equipment, and their Soviet patron. For the next decade, the SNA sought unsuccessfully to improve its capability by relying on a variety of foreign sources, including the United States. The Ogaden War therefore remains the best example of the SNA's ability to mount and sustain conventional military operations.

Before the Ogaden War, the most striking feature of the 23,000-man SNA had been its large armored force, which was equipped with about 250 T-34 and T-54/T-55 Soviet-built medium tanks and more than 300 armored personnel carriers. This equipment gave the SNA a tank force more than three times as large as Ethiopia's. The prewar SAF also was larger than Ethiopia's air force. In 1976 the SAF had fifty-two combat aircraft, twenty-four of which were Soviet-built supersonic MiG21s . Facing them was an Ethiopian Air Force (EAF) of thirty-five to forty aircraft. Ethiopia also was in the process of acquiring several United States-built Northrop F-5 fighters from Iran. At the outbreak of fighting, Ethiopia had approximately sixteen F5A /Es.

As chaos spread throughout Ethiopia after Haile Selassie's downfall, Mogadishu increased its support to several pro-Somali liberation groups in the Ogaden, the strongest of which was the WSLF. By late 1975, the WSLF had attacked many Ethiopian outposts in the Ogaden. In June 1977, Addis Ababa accused Mogadishu of committing SNA units to the fighting. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Somalia denied this charge and insisted that only "volunteers" had been given leave from the SNA to fight with the WSLF. By late 1977, the combined WSLF-SNA strength in the Ogaden probably approached 50,000, of which 15,000 appeared to be irregulars.

After the Somali government committed the SNA to the Ogaden, the conflict ceased to be a guerrilla action and assumed the form of a conventional war in which armor, mechanized infantry, and air power played decisive roles. The SNA quickly adapted its organization to battlefield realities. The centralized Somali logistics system controlled supplies at battalion level (600- to 1,000-man units) from Mogadishu, an unwieldy arrangement given Somalia's limited transportation and communications network (see Transportation; Communications , ch. 3). To facilitate operations, the logistics center and headquarters for forces fighting in the northern Ogaden moved to Hargeysa, the SNA's northern sector headquarters. Before the war, all Somali ground forces had been organized into battalions. After the conflict started, however, the standard infantry and mechanized infantry unit became the brigade, composed of two to four battalions and having a total strength of 1,200 to 2,000 personnel.

During the summer of 1977, the SNA-WSLF force achieved several victories but also endured some significant defeats. In July 1977, it captured Gode, on the Shabeelle River about 550 kilometers inside Ethiopia, and won control of 60 percent of the Ogaden. By mid-September 1977, Ethiopia conceded that 90 percent of the Ogaden was in Somali hands. The SNA suffered two setbacks in August when it tried to capture Dire Dawa and Jijiga. The Ethiopian army inflicted heavy losses on the SNA at Dire Dawa after a Somali attack by one tank battalion and a mechanized infantry brigade supported by artillery units. At Jijiga the Somalis lost more than half of their attacking force of three tank battalions, each of which included more than thirty tanks.

Somalia's greatest victory occurred in mid-September 1977 in the second attempt to take Jijiga, when three tank battalions overwhelmed the Ethiopian garrison. After inflicting some heavy losses on Somali armor, Ethiopian troops mutinied and withdrew from the town, leaving its defense to the militia, which was incapable of slowing the Somali advance. The Ethiopians retreated beyond the strategic Marda Pass, the strongest defensive position between Jijiga and Harer, leaving the SNA in a commanding position within the region. Despite this success, several factors prevented a Somali victory. Somali tank losses had been heavy in the battles around Dire Dawa and Jijiga. Moreover, because the EAF had established air superiority over the SAF, it could harass overextended Somali supply lines with impunity. The onset of the rainy season hampered such air attacks; however, the bad weather also bogged down Somali reinforcements on the dirt roads.

The Soviet Union's decision to abandon Somalia in favor of Ethiopia eventually turned the tide of battle in the Ogaden. From October 1977 through January 1978, about 20,000 WSLF guerrillas and SNA forces pressed attacks on Harer, where nearly 50,000 Ethiopians had regrouped, backed by Soviet-supplied armor and artillery and gradually reinforced by 11,000 Cubans and 1,500 Soviet advisers. Although it fought its way into Harer in November 1977, the SNA lacked the supplies and manpower to capture the city. Subsequently, the Somalis regrouped outside Harer and awaited an Ethiopian counterattack.

As expected, in early February 1978 Ethiopian and Cuban forces launched a two-stage counterattack toward Jijiga. Unexpectedly, however, a column of Cubans and Ethiopians moving north and east crossed the highlands between Jijiga and the Somali border, bypassing Somali troops dug in around the Marda Pass. Thus, the attacking force was able to assault the Somalis from two sides and recapture Jijiga after two days of fighting in which 3,000 Somali troops lost their lives. Within a week, Ethiopia had retaken all of the Ogaden's major towns. On March 9, 1978, Siad Barre recalled the SNA from Ethiopia.

After the SNA withdrawal, the WSLF reverted to guerrilla tactics. By May 1980, the rebels had established control over a significant portion of the Ogaden. Eventually, Ethiopia defeated the WSLF and the few small SNA units that remained in the region after the Somali pullout. In late 1981, however, reports indicated that the WSLF continued to conduct occasional hit-and- run attacks against Ethiopian targets.

[FarhanYare]

smh! not another siad baare thread

[STARKAST]

smh! not another siad baare thread

Hes the most important Somali man of the last century. He died less than 20 yrs ago. These convos will cease to exist in a few more centuries time.

[luis1]

Siad Barre was a killer,he brought destruction and death to Somalia.

[STARKAST]

Siad Barre was a killer,he brought destruction and death to Somalia.

And what about Hawiye ?
The question is my friend would you rather Siads reign to continue (thus us in Somalia) (with the possibility of a bloodless coup later on - as siad one) or the feral Hawiye free, creating a deadlock for nearly a quarter of a century ?

Progress or Regression


- Siads Regime murdered my relatives however unlike some people i don't cry about this etc etc.

[luis1]

He killed many somalis and we must blame him for Ogaden War defeat in 1978.

[FarhanYare]

smh! not another siad baare thread

Hes the most important Somali man of the last century. He died less than 20 yrs ago. These convos will cease to exist in a few more centuries time.

listen to this wise man:

Siad Barre was a killer,he brought destruction and death to Somalia.

[hydrogen]

This isn't about what he done to Somalis or not, but the reason he retreated in war.

[luis1]

He does not retreat in 1978,he was defeated by Cuba and Soviet Union.