Word: aidid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hussein Mohammed Aidid is still getting used to his transformation from warlord to Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister. But his assessment of the precarious hold the new government has on Somalia, after ousting an Islamist regime, is both candid and grim. "The institutions of the T.F.G. [Transitional Federal Government] are very weak," Aidid says in an interview with Time at his villa in Mogadishu. "It is a symbolic government. Permanence we do not have. We do not have institutions, we do not have a credible force. Unless [we receive outside assistance] quickly, we have no chance of building a nation...
...earlier incarnation, Aidid was - and some say still is - commander of a clan militia that ruled a district of Mogadishu from the barrel of a gun. A naturalized U.S. citizen who became a U.S. Marine in 1987 and served in Somalia in 1992, Aidid succeeded his father, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, as leader of a Saad clan militia after he was killed in 1996. In 1993, it was the elder Aidid's faction that killed 18 U.S. troops in a bloody Mogadishu street battle made famous by the book and movie Black Hawk Down. Today, by virtue of the clan power...
...government, winning the war is only the first step toward reviving a failed state. Aidid, Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed all recognize that they cannot succeed without reaching out to all sectors of the population. "We will reconcile with the Islamists," says Aidid. "All their remnants can join our forces." But given the chaos the warlords wrought over the past 15 years and the fragile order now reigning in Mogadishu, distrust of the T.F.G. on the streets is running high. "For the last six months," says development consultant Muktar Hassan Elmi, "we could say, 'I will live tomorrow...
...earlier incarnation, Aidid was - and some say still is - commander of a clan militia that ruled a district of Mogadishu from the barrel of a gun. A naturalized U.S. citizen and a Marine who served in the first Gulf War, Aidid was a successor to his father, Mohammed Farah Aidid, the warlord who battled American troops in the Somalian capital in 1993, killing 18, in a bloody street battle made famous by the movie Black Hawk Down. (Mohammed Farah Aidid was killed in 1996.) Today, by virtue of the Byzantine clan structure and shifting power deals that carve up this...
...government, winning the war is only the first step toward reviving a failed state. Aidid, Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi and President Yusuf Abdullai recognize that the new government cannot succeed without disarmament, and an effort to be as inclusive as possible. "We will reconcile with the Islamists, "says Aidid. "All their remnants can join our forces." Both are daunting tasks. Some warlords have already dismissed the new government as a paper authority that will cease to have muscle - and therefore a point - once Ethiopia withdraws its forces. And on Tuesday, Gedi's attempt to persuade Somalis to disarm voluntarily...