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Mohamed Siad Barre (Somali: Maxamed Siyaad Barre) (1919, Ganane,
Italian Somaliland – January 2, 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) was the socialist
President of Somalia from 1969 to 1991.
His presidency he was army commander under the democratic government
of Somalia which had been in place since independence in June 1960.

As a boy, Barre was an orphaned shepherd before joining the Italian
colonial police force. He had no formal education, but studied hard and
attended some military courses in Italy. He became the Vice Commander of
Somalia's Army when the country gained independence from Italy in 1960.
Barre became an advocate of Soviet style Marxist government after
spending time with Soviet officers in joint training exercises in the early
1960s.
In 1969, during the power vacuum following the assassination of President
Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, the military staged a coup and took over.

Barre was to rule for the next twenty-two years. He attempted to develop a personality cult; large
posters of him were common in the capital Mogadishu during his reign, many of which can still be seen
today. During the Cold War, control of Somalia was of great interest to the Soviet Union and the
United States due to its strategic location at the entrance to the Red Sea. Barre's government was
initially supported by the Soviet Union, but lost Soviet support in 1977 over Somali efforts to annex the
Ogaden region of Ethiopia. He subsequently expelled all Soviet advisors, tore up his friendship treaty
with the Soviet Union, and switched his allegiance to the West. The United States stepped in, and until
1989 was a strong supporter of the Barre government, providing approximately US$100 million per
year in economic and military aid. Siad Barre played a big role in 17 October and 18 October 1977 when
Red Army Faction group hijacked a Lufthansa flight 181 to Mogadishu, Somalia. All 86 hostages were
held by a Red Army Faction group in the hijacked plane in Mogadishu, Somalia. West German Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt and Siad Barre negotiated about letting GSG-9 anti-terrorist unit in Mogadishu to free
the hostages.

Barre's support was heavily based on ethnic and tribal affiliation. In the late 1980s, rival factional
groups began to make substantial territorial gains, especially in the northern Somaliland region. Barre
launched an intense counter-insurgency campaign. According to a 1990 report by Africa Watch, an
affiliate of Human Rights Watch, fifty to sixty thousand people were killed in the fighting in between
1988 and 1990. Barre was finally unseated on the evening of 26 January 1991. He was succeeded by
Ali Mahdi Muhammad until November 1991, but Ali Mahdi's government never managed to exert political
or military control over most of the country.

After leaving Mogadishu in January 1991, Barre temporarily remained in the southwestern region of the
country controlled by his son-in-law Mohamed Said Hersi. He twice attempted to retake Mogadishu, but
in May 1992, he was overwhelmed by General Aidid's army, and went into exile. He initially moved to
Nairobi, Kenya, but opposition groups there protested his presence and support by the Kenyan
government, so he moved to Nigeria only two weeks later. He died on 2 January 1995 in Lagos,
Nigeria, of a heart attack, and his remains were buried in his hometown in Somalia. As of 2006,
Somalia has had no real national leader nor any effective national government since Siad Barre was
deposed in 1991.

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