Ex-Covina student key player in Somalia

[-Nomadique-]

Fred Ortega, Staff Writer

San Bernardino County Sun

Article Launched:01/10/2007 12:00:00 AM PST

 

Hussein Mohamed Aidid's path from ordinary Covina High School student to a ministerial position in Somalia's fragile transitional government was an odd and tortuous one.

Aidid has been in and out of the international spotlight since 1996, when he took over his infamous warlord father's forces in the long-embattled Somali capital, Mogadishu. In recent days, he has resurfaced in news reports as internal affairs minister for the Transitional Somali Government (TSG), which was installed to head the war-ravaged country after a New Year's offensive led by Ethiopian troops.

 

His current job of trying to disarm the gun-infested capital after months of rule by the fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union is a far cry from his days plotting roads and updating water records at West Covina City Hall for $9 per hour.

 

Aidid's position was the "lowest level" in the engineering department, former City Engineer Pat Glover has said.

 

"He did various and sundry assistant-type duties, running blueprints, making maps," Glover said.

 

A naturalized U.S. citizen who graduated from Covina High in 1980 and later joined the U.S. Marines as a reservist, Aidid later followed in the footsteps of his father, Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The elder Aidid, killed as a result of a gunbattle in Mogadishu in 1996, was responsible for the infamous "Black Hawk Down" attack on U.S. forces in Somalia in 1993.

 

Despite his checkered background, which included praising an attack against American troops during a rally in Mogadishu in 1996, Aidid's inclusion in the transitional government should not affect U.S. support for the country, said Somalia expert Andre Le Sage.

 

"`Black Hawk Down' does not carry any substantial negative stigma for the son in terms of U.S. policy," said Le Sage, assistant professor for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

 

"I don't think it influences U.S. policy (toward the transitional government) in a positive or negative way."

 

And that policy has been generally positive. The U.S. government has sided with the fledgling government in its struggle against the Islamic Courts, elements of which have been accused by State Department officials of harboring al-Qaida fugitives.

 

"The U.S. position has been officially to support the TSG, which is recognized by the U.N.," said Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and adjunct senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.