How a U.S. Marine Became a Warlord in Somalia

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.netnomad.com/aydiidyounger.nyt.html

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

August 12, 1996

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- One of the many oddities in this battered capital is that a son of Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the Somali faction leader who humiliated the United States in 1993, was a naturalized American citizen, not to mention a U.S. Marine.

But that bizarre footnote took on a new dimension last weekend after the general died of gunshot wounds he had received in battle. His clan elders, meeting behind closed doors, selected the same 33-year-old son, Hussein Mohamed Farrah, to become the new president of Aidid's self-proclaimed republic.

It was a strange choice, politicians here say. Until a year ago, Farrah was living an obscure and mundane life in a Los Angeles suburb, going to school part time and working as a clerk in the West Covina engineering department for $9 a hour. The closest he had come to his father's way of life was when he served as a corporal in the Marine reserves.

Now Somalis throughout this war-weary country are waiting uneasily to see how the young warlord with the American accent will change the balance of power among the clan leaders who have carved Somalia up into what amounts to feudal kingdoms.

On the ruined streets of Mogadishu, the same questions were heard on many lips last week: Is the son a copy of his father -- the ambitious and ruthless general who wanted to subdue the entire country by force? Or will he be a peacemaker, a man capable of ending the civil war that has scourged this harsh desert land since 1990?

[YOY]

1. Wow. This would be a great novel that people would call "fantasy" if it weren't real.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

[tocqueville]

7. calls for an "Apocalypse Now" revisited...

you know choppers taam-ta-ta-taam taam-ta-ta-taam

[Stinky The Clown]

2. You're quite the font of old news clippings today, aintcha?

[NNN0LHI]

3. Things I remember come back to me sometimes

This was one of those things.

:hi:

Don

[dionysus]

4. so what happened to the guy?

[NNN0LHI]

5. Minister of Public Works and Housing (February 7, 2007 – present)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_Mohamed_Farrah

Offices held:

Deputy Prime Minister (2005 – May 13, 2007)
Minister of the Interior (2005 – February 7, 2007)
Minister of Public Works and Housing (February 7, 2007 – present)

[dionysus]

6. cool thx Don!

:hi: