Ethio-Somalia history: Western Samalia War (1977-78)

[Liibaan]

 

AFTER SOMALIA GAINED INDEPENDENCE in 1960, its military grew steadily, despite the country's status as one of the poorest states in sub-Saharan Africa. Largely under Soviet patronage, the military expanded from 5,000 troops at independence to 23,000 during the 1977-78 Og den War. By 1981 the armed forces had 50,000 personnel; by 1990 that number had increased to 65,000.

 

Until the Og den War, Somalia possessed one of East Africa's best equipped armed forces. However, Ethiopia destroyed much of the army's fighting capability during the 1977-78 conflict. To rebuild its military, Somalia sought assistance from China and a variety of Arab and Western countries, including the United States.

 

Somalia's defeat in the Og den War and deteriorating internal conditions lost the government much of its domestic support. As the Mahammad Siad Barre regime became more politically isolated, the president and members of his Mareehaan subclan increasingly dominated the government, the economy, and the armed forces. Growing oppression in Somalia forced many critics into exile, where they organized opposition groups. A lack of resources initially limited the exiles' opposition activity to propaganda campaigns and occasional minor guerrilla forays into Somalia.

 

By the late 1980s, several opposition groups had transformed themselves into relatively powerful, clan-based (see Glossary) insurgent movements. Relying on financial assistance from Somali exile communities and various foreign governments, the insurgents grew in strength and numbers. The armed forces, which eventually faced insurgencies throughout Somalia, gradually disintegrated. Finally, in early 1991 Siad Barre and many of his closest Mareehaan advisers relinquished power and fled Mogadishu. If Somalia were to have a future as a single nation, reconstituting the armed forces on a more representative basis would be essential to national unity and stability.

 

Somalia

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS

From independence until the mid-1980s, Somalia's national security concerns focused largely on the threat posed by its neighbor, Ethiopia. After the Og den War, Ethiopia used Soviet, Cuban, and East European military and technical assistance to establish itself as the dominant power in the Horn of Africa. By the mid-1980s, Ethiopia's support of Somali insurgent groups posed a growing threat to Somalia's internal security. In early 1991, Somali-Ethiopian tensions eased as long-established governments fell in both Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. By the spring of 1992, however, it remained unclear whether relations between the two countries would be characterized by cooperation and peace, or if old arguments over the Og den's (******** ) status would renew the hostility between Somalia and Ethiopia.

 

Somalia

Irredentism and the Changing Balance of Power

Somalia's defeat in the Og den War, Ethiopian hostility, the emergence of an alliance between Addis Ababa and Moscow, regional tensions, and periods of international isolation all resulted directly or indirectly from Somalia's unwillingness to recognize political boundaries drawn by British, French, and Italian colonists, in conjunction with Ethiopia. Since independence, successive Somali governments had sought to reincorporate those Somalis living in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti into Greater Somalia. (Under the Siad Barre regime, the five-pointed star on the Somali flag represented the northern and southern regions of the republic and the "unredeemed territories" in Kenya's NorthEastern Province, Ethiopia's Og den Province, and Djibouti.) In 1960-64, for example, guerrillas supported by the Somali government battled local security forces in Kenya and Ethiopia on behalf of Somalia's territorial claims. Then, in 1964, Ethiopian and Somali regular forces clashed.

 

By late 1964, it had become obvious that the initial campaign to unify all Somalis had failed. Ethiopian forces had established superiority over the Somalis in the Og den, in part because of Ethiopia's ability to conduct air raids on Somali territory. In Kenya the government relied on assistance from British counterinsurgency experts to control Somali guerrillas in what was then the Northern Frontier District (NFD). In late 1964, Kenya's president Jomo Kenyatta and Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie signed a mutual defense agreement aimed at containing Somali aggression. The two countries renewed the pact in 1979 and again in 1989. These factors, in combination with the opposition of the Organization of African Unity to Somali aims and defense costs that amounted to 30 percent of the national budget in the mid-1980s, forced Mogadishu to reconsider its territorial ambitions.

 

Under Mahammad Ibrahim Igaal, Somalia's last civilian government initiated--and Siad Barre's military regime initially continued--a policy of détente with Somalia's neighbors. During the 1970s, however, Somali military strength gradually increased as a result of Soviet support. The Soviet Union supplied the Somali National Army (SNA) with the largest tank force in subSaharan Africa, transport vehicles--including armored personnel carriers--for a largely mechanized infantry, and jet aircraft that included MiG-21 fighter-bombers. In 1974 Somalia and the Soviet Union formalized their relationship by signing the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. The Ethiopian army at that time remained twice as large as Somalia's 23,000-man force, but because of reduced military aid from the United States, the Ethiopians were not as well equipped. Furthermore, in 1974 Ethiopia's imperial government was headed toward collapse. In September of that year a group of military officers deposed Haile Selassie. Conflict ensued among those responsible for his overthrow, and several insurgent groups sought to secede from the erstwhile empire.

 

Somalia's military buildup, coincident with the turmoil in Ethiopia, temporarily altered the balance of power between the two countries. In 1976-77 Somalia attempted to take advantage of the situation by supporting a guerrilla campaign by the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), a pro-Somali liberation group in the Og den, to seize the Og den from Ethiopia. By the late summer of 1977, Somali armored forces and mechanized infantry supported by aircraft had invaded the Og den, capturing 60 percent of the disputed territory within several weeks.

 

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 Og den, 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 Og den War ended Mogadishu's dream of recreating Greater Somalia. Even before the setback in the Og den, Siad Barre had relinquished his claim to Djibouti after 95 percent of the voters in that country indicated a preference for independence over incorporation into Somalia. In 1981 Somali-Kenyan relations improved after Siad Barre visited Nairobi and indicated that his government no longer had any claim to Kenyan territory. In December 1984, Somalia and Kenya signed a pact that pledged both governments to cease hostilities along their common frontier. Subsequently, the level of insurgent activity along the border was minimal. However, the activities of Somali shiftas, or bandits and ivory poachers and the periodic influx of Somali refugees into Kenya continued to strain relations between Mogadishu and Nairobi.

 

Somalia

The Og den War: Performance and Implications of Defeat

The SNA never recovered from its defeat in the Og den War. The battles to retake and then defend the Og den 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 Og den War therefore remains the best example of the SNA's ability to mount and sustain conventional military operations.

 

Before the Og den 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 Og den, the strongest of which was the WSLF. By late 1975, the WSLF had attacked many Ethiopian outposts in the Og den. 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 Og den probably approached 50,000, of which 15,000 appeared to be irregulars.

 

After the Somali government committed the SNA to the Og den, 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 Og den 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 Og den. By mid-September 1977, Ethiopia conceded that 90 percent of the Og den 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 Og den. 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 Og den'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 Og den. 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.

 

Postwar Status of the Armed Forces

In the early 1980s, the Somali armed forces had to adjust to the realities of their defeat in the Og den War. Somali manpower had doubled during the conflict, but the Ethiopian army had destroyed a significant amount of Somali equipment. Shortages of military hardware, inadequate maintenance, and lack of spare parts for what remained of Soviet-supplied equipment limited the effectiveness of all units. Better relations between Somalia and the United States resolved some of these problems. Between 1983 and 1986, United States military assistance to Somalia averaged US$36 to US$40 million per year (see Foreign Military Assistance , this ch.). This aid was insufficient, however, to restore the Somali armed forces to their pre-Og den War effectiveness.

 

As insurgent activity intensified during the late 1980s and the Somali government failed to develop additional sources of large-scale military assistance, the armed forces slowly deteriorated. By 1990 the Somali military was in a state of collapse. After Siad Barre fled Mogadishu in January 1991, the SNA and all related military and security services ceased to exist. Most of their military equipment fell into the hands of insurgents, clan militiamen, or bandits. The status of former military and security personnel varied. Some fled abroad to countries such as Kenya or Ethiopia; others returned to civilian life or became insurgents, bandits, or clan militia members. A small number remained loyal to Siad Barre, who took refuge in southern Somalia and then launched a military campaign to regain power. The campaign failed, however, and Siad Barre sought exile in Nigeria, where he remained in early 1992.

[RedSea]

I have read that piece of history atleast million times, but thanks for the effort of posting it Garaadow.