Friday, August 2nd 1996.
Footage of the funeral of Mohamed Farrah Aidid the Somalian Soldier who became a political prisoner, a diplomat and later warlord.
Aidid became a political prisoner under the government of (then) Major General Siad Barre soon after Barre assumed power in the wake of the assassination of President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke.
He was released from detention to participate in the war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden Region. He later became a special advisor to Barre and an ambassador to India.
Aidid was a leader of the United Somali Congress (USC) which along with other factions had forced the overthrow of Barre. But the country descended into chaos as both Aidid and Ali Mahdi Muhammad, another leader within the USC sought to exert control in the capital city Mogadishu.
Aidid died in 1996 at the age of 63. He had suffered a heart attack after he had been wounded in a gun battle.
Reuters Text:
More than 10,000 Somalis have attended the burial of the powerful faction leader Mohamed Farah Aideed who died on Thursday after being fatally wounded in clan fighting.
The Italian and Russian-trained general, whose ragged fighters humiliated the U.S. army, was buried on Friday (August 2) at his private residence at Haliwa in his south Mogadishu fiefdom.
His flag-drapped coffin was carried through streets of south Mogadishu in a Toyota pick-up decorated with flowers. Hundreds of thousands of wailing Somalis stood by.
Islamic clerics recited the Koran at the burial also attended by his deputies and supporters.
Technical battlewagons took to the streets in salute of their fallen hero. South Mogadishu was tense but calm.
Aideed's arch-rival Ali Mahdi Mohamed, who controls north Mogadishu and heads the largest clan coalition ranged against Aideed, issued a statement on Friday calling for an unconditional ceasefire in the battle-wrecked city.
With the death of Aideed, Ali Mahdi Mohamed is Somalia's most powerful political figure.
Aideed led his militia against the might of the United States in 1993, driving out a United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping force before declaring himself president of Somalia.
The Horn of Africa country has been without a central government since rebels overthrew president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. But they then turned their guns on each other.
Aideed controlled south Mogadishu until his death on Thursday (August 1) and was a leading hurdle to peace efforts by the OAU and the U.N..
His death came more than a week after he was hit by bullets in clan fighting largely sparked by his lust for power and optimists among Somalis and foreign aid workers hoped peace might now come to the region.
One aid official said prospects for peace in Somalia had probably improved with the death of Aideed.
Another senior international aid official said the death and resulting power vacuum was likely to trigger a "jostle for power" in the short term, but could benefit ordinary Somalis."
Source: Reuters News Archive.
