On this day October 21, 1969

A coup d’état in Somalia brings Siad Barre محمد سياد بري to power.

Siad Barre - محمد سياد بري

In 1969, during the power vacuum that followed the assassination of Somalia’s second president, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, the military staged a coup on October 21, 1969 (the day after Shermarke’s funeral), and took over office.

Barre was installed as president of the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC), the new government of Somalia.

The SRC arrested members of the former government and banned political parties. The National Assembly was also abolished and the constitution suspended.

The country was renamed the Somali Democratic Republic, and Barre became the spokesman and leader of the new revolutionary government. In 1971, he announced the regime’s intention to phase out military rule.

Barre’s first and second vice presidents, Jaama Ali Qoorsheel and Mahammad Ainanche, were both arrested and imprisoned in 1970 and 1971 for attempting to overthrow the SRC regime.

Shelling in Somalia kills ex-soldiers

Fifteen people, among them disabled war veterans, were killed on Saturday after a hospital in Somalia was bombarded by mortar rockets launched by opposition fighters.

The attack was targeted at at residential area in the country’s capital of Mogadishu, but instead struck a veteran’s hospital nearby.

Mohamed Abdi, a patient at the hospital, was a witness to the event. “I was sitting in my wheelchair about 10 meters [30 feet] away from my friends when a mortar exploded and smoke and dust covered us all. I saw my friends on the ground, with blood scattered everywhere like slaughtered goats,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

Violence in Somalia’s capital

At least 22 people were killed as Somali government and African Union troops battled Islamist rebels in Mogadishu over the past two days.

The attacks started when the insurgent group al-Shabaab, who is trying to overthrow the government, started firing mortar bombs in the capital on Friday. The onslaught was apparently provoked by African Union troops, who had earlier entered rebel-controlled territories.

“They provoked us by coming into our areas, so we have a right to attack them in their bases,” al-Shabaab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said.

Somali minister killed

According to officials, the Somali security minister, Omar Hashi Aden, was killed after a suicide car bomb detonated near a hotel in Beledweyne, located north of the Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu.

At least nine other people are believed to have been killed in the explosion. Among the dead was Abdulkarim Ibrahim Lakanyo, a former ambassador to Ethiopia.

The country’s president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, blamed the attacks on the radical Islamist al-Shabab militant group, which is believed to have links with al-Qaedea. al-Shabab later did claim responsibility for the incident.

“I am sending condolences to the family of the Security Minister Omar Hashi who was killed in an explosion in Baladwayne,” Ahmed said.

Fighting in Mogadishu left 113 people dead

The Elman Human Rights Organization reported on Tuesday that heavy fighting in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, has left 113 people dead over three days and forced a further 27,000 to evacuate. 345 people have been injured in the fighting.

The fighting is between al-Shabab, an insurgent organisation wanting to oust Somalia’s current government and install an Islamic state, and pro-government fighters.

“They [the rebels] are anarchists. We will continue the fighting until we eliminate these elements,” National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden said to the Associated Press, pledging to crack down upon the rebels.

“The fighting erupted in the most densely populated areas,” Ali Shaykh Yasin from the Elman Human Rights Group told a local radio station, HornAfrik. “The number of people killed who we saw were 123, while 312 others were wounded.” He said that the outburst of violence in the capital had taken residents by surprise.

Belgian ship hijacked by Somali pirates

A Belgian ship has been hijacked by Somali pirates in waters off the coast of the Horn of Africa, according to a Belgian government’s crisis management centre spokesman. The vessel involved in the incident was the 65-metre, 1,850 Pompei, en route to the Seychelles islands, located further south.

The ship sent out two alarms at 04.30 and 05.00 GMT on Friday. Aboard the vessel were ten crew members, including four Croatians, three Filipinos, and two Belgians.

Somali pirates seize two tankers

Pirates in Somalia have seized two European tankers within twenty-four hours. In the same time frame three other vessels escaped and a yacht which disappeared after departing the Seychelles has been reported as hijacked.

Yesterday MV Nipayia, a 9,000-ton tanker owned by Athens, Greece-based Lotus Shipping and flagged in Panama, was seized. The vessel has eighteen crew members from the Philippines and a captain from Russia. She was hijacked 380 miles from Hobyo.

Mogadishu rocked by fierce battle

The 2009 Somali Islamist inter-factional war, it left at least 15 people dead and 90 more injured during what the BBC described as “the fiercest fighting in the Somali capital Mogadishu since a new president was elected last month” (January 2009).

The battle was fought mainly in the south of the city. Rebels fired volleys of mortar bombs at the presidential palace, located on a hilltop in the Wardhigley district.