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As Somalia once again erupts into war, a weird Southern California connection has come to light:
quote:
From Marine to Warlord
A Somali who once lived in West Covina now has hopes of becoming president of his homeland.
By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer
January 22, 2007
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — The Planning Department clerk from West Covina was mapping bike routes and San Bernardino Freeway overpasses when two U.S. Marines drove up in a white Chevrolet and took him away.
The night before, on Oct. 3, 1993, Hussein Mohammed Aidid had watched in horror as television conveyed images of a disastrous U.S. military mission against a Mogadishu warlord. After two Black Hawk helicopters crashed, an ensuing gunfight left 18 American servicemen dead, and rioting Somalis dragged some of the bodies through the streets.
"Hell is coming," he recalled thinking before turning off the TV in disgust.
Perhaps no one in the world was more conflicted than Aidid, a Somalian immigrant who settled in Southern California as a teenager. He had served with the U.S. Marines in Mogadishu for four months that year as part of Operation Restore Hope, and the death of the U.S. Rangers "was like a black hole inside of me."
But his father, Mohammed Farah Aidid, was the warlord the U.S. was targeting.
The next morning, at the U.S. Marine base at Camp Pendleton, a commander asked Aidid to send a letter to his father, pleading for the release of a captured U.S. pilot. He said he didn't hesitate.
"I felt almost as if I could have been in that conflict and died," he said.
Three years later, however, Aidid would abandon his job and his military ties in America to return home after the death of his father. Aidid assumed control of his father's militia, inherited a vast swath of territory and became one of Somalia's most powerful warlords himself.
Today Aidid, 44, is trying to change mantles again. As interior minister for Somalia's struggling transitional government, he is the man charged with restoring security to Mogadishu. After routing Islamic fighters from southern Somalia last month with the help of Ethiopian troops, the government is trying to bring order after 16 years of chaos and clan wars.
Described by critics as a wily opportunist who switches alliances easily, Aidid makes no secret of his desire to one day become president. Despite anger by some Somalis over the recent U.S. airstrike against suspected terrorists in the country, Aidid said his U.S. background is an asset, not a liability.
"People say to me: 'You are our connection to the world. You understand that world. Be that bridge,' " he said.
So another thread of world events passes through SoCal. What, if anything, does it mean?
Read the full Los Angeles Times story here.
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01-23-2007 11:10 AM
