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The Somali National Army () are the ground forces component of the Somali Armed Forces. Since Somali independence in 1960, the Army fought to expand and increase Somalia's sphere of influence throughout the Horn of Africa counter to
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
's and
Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
's ambitions, because of this, Somalia had amassed large ground forces. After the fall of Mohammed Siad Barre the Armed Forces began an unsteady rebirth in the 21st century.


History


Origins

The Somali National Army can trace its roots back to troops used by the Ifat Sultanate as the successful conquest of Shewa by the Ifat Sultanate ignited a rivalry for supremacy with the Solomonic dynasty. The
Trust Territory of Somaliland The Trust Territory of Somaliland, officially the Trust Territory of Somaliland under Italian Administration (), was a United Nations Trust Territory from 1950 to 1960, following the dissolution of the former British Military Administration. I ...
established a national police force to defend the nascent Somali Republic's borders. A law to that effect was passed on 6 April 1960. Thus the Somali Police Force's Mobile Group (Darawishta Poliska or Darawishta) was formed. 12 April 1960 has since been marked as ''Armed Forces Day''. British Somaliland became independent on 26 June 1960 as the
State of Somaliland Somaliland, officially the State of Somaliland (), was an independent country in the territory of the present-day unilaterally declared Republic of Somaliland, which regards itself as its legal successor. It existed on the territory of former ...
, and the Trust Territory of Somalia (the former Italian Somaliland) followed suit five days later. On 1 July 1960, the two territories united to form the Somali Republic. Following independence, the SNA was created by merging police units in the former trusteeship with the northern Somaliland Scouts from the former British protectorate. Combined, both forces totalled around 1,800 to 2,000 men.


1960s

Following its formation, the SNA was equipped with primarily British and Italian equipment from the two former Somalilands, dating from World War II. In 1962 it was noted that the SNA possessed a total of five tanks, all of which were Comet tanks. Other vehicles included six Ferret armoured car and eighteen
Universal Carrier The Universal Carrier, a development of the earlier Bren Gun Carrier from its light machine gun armament, was one of a family of light armoured tracked vehicles built by Vickers-Armstrongs and other companies. The first carriers – the Br ...
s.


1964 War

In February 1964, four years into its formation, the Somali National Army faced its first test during a short war with the
Ethiopian Empire The Ethiopian Empire, historically known as Abyssinia or simply Ethiopia, was a sovereign state that encompassed the present-day territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It existed from the establishment of the Solomonic dynasty by Yekuno Amlak a ...
. The Ethiopian Imperial Army was larger and better equipped than the SNA. The war was preceded and ignited by a rebellion and insurgency in the Ogaden region, inhabited primarily by
Somalis The Somali people (, Wadaad's writing, Wadaad: , Arabic: ) are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group and nation native to the Somali Peninsula. who share a common ancestry, culture and history. The Lowland East Cushitic languages, East ...
, which began in mid-1963. The suppression of
insurgents An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregular forces face a large, well ...
and reprisals carried out by Emperor Haile Selassie's government resulted in a rapid decline in Ethio-Somali relations. Sporadic small-scale skirmishes between border police and Ethiopian airstrikes that began along the border in late 1963 escalated into large-scale warfare in early 1964. In mid-January 1964, border violence escalated and on 8 February both nations declared states of emergency. Regular army units from both militaries were deployed along the northern border, resulting in numerous large-scale military engagements in the Haud, such as the Battle of Tog Wajaale. In the days following, the war spread across the entire 900-km Ethiopian–Somali frontier with most combat taking place on the Somali side. The conflict was characterized by intense fighting around various border posts and villages, such as Dolow, and aerial bombardments by the vastly superior
Ethiopian Air Force The Ethiopian Air Force (ETAF) () is the air service branch of the Ethiopian National Defence Force. The ETAF is tasked with protecting the national air space, providing support to ground forces, as well as assisting civil operations during wa ...
on major urban centers in Somalia such as
Hargeisa Hargeisa ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Somaliland, a ''List of states with limited recognition, de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still considered internationally to be part of Somalia. It is also th ...
and Galkayo. The
Organization of African Unity The Organisation of African Unity (OAU; , OUA) was an African intergovernmental organization established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with 33 signatory governments. Some of the key aims of the OAU were to encourage political and ec ...
(OAU) attempted to broker several ceasefire agreements, but they repeatedly failed. Despite the continuing hostilities, both nations participated in diplomatic negotiations in
Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...
,
Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...
, at the request of various African
heads of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...
and the war eventually concluded in early April 1964.


1970s

Following the 1969 Somali coup d'état, the army assumed a central political role in the country. SNA officers of the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) ran the country's ministerial and administrative posts, while the rank and file of the army was involved more deeply in civic action programs such as sand dune stabilization, road construction and refugee resettlement. By 1970, the Somali National Army was 10,000 men strong and possessed 150 tanks, most being Soviet T-34's. By 1975 this figure had risen to 250 tanks and 300 armored personnel carriers. Following the end of the
Ogaden War The Ogaden War, also known as the Ethio-Somali War (, ), was a military conflict between Somali Democratic Republic, Somalia and derg, Ethiopia fought from July 1977 to March 1978 over control of the sovereignty of the Ogaden region. Somalia ...
and coup attempt in 1978, the state of the SNA began to decline, Since 2019, Eritrea has been helping the reestablishment of the Somali National Army. That year it clandestinely accepted 5,000 recruits in an operation overseen by NISA chief Fahad Yasin.


Equipment


Army equipment, 1981

The following were the Somali National Army's major weapons in 1981:


Army equipment, 1989

Prior arms acquisitions included the following equipment, much of which was unserviceable as of June 1989: 293
main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank or simply tank,Ogorkiewicz 2018 p222 is a tank that fills the role of armour-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more po ...
s (30
Centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...
from Kuwait, 123
M47 Patton The M47 Patton was an American medium tank, a development of the M46 Patton mounting an updated turret, and was in turn further developed as the M48 Patton. It was the second American tank to be named after General George S. Patton, commande ...
, 30
T-34 The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank from World War II. When introduced, its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was more powerful than many of its contemporaries, and its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against Anti-tank warfare, ...
, 110 T-54/55 from various sources). Other armoured fighting vehicles included 10 M41 Walker Bulldog light tanks, 30
BRDM-2 The BRDM-2 (''Boyevaya Razvedyvatelnaya Dozornaya Mashina'', Боевая Разведывательная Дозорная Машина, literally "Combat Reconnaissance/Patrol Vehicle") is an amphibious armoured scout car designed and developed ...
and 15
Panhard AML The Panhard AML (''automitrailleuse légère'', or "light armoured car") is an armoured car with reconnaissance capability. Designed by Panhard on a lightly armoured 4×4 chassis, it weighs an estimated 5.5 tonnes, and is thus suitable for airbo ...
-90 armored cars (formerly owned by Saudi Arabia). The IISS estimated in 1989 that there were 474
armoured personnel carrier An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world. Acc ...
s, including 64 BTR-40,
BTR-50 The BTR-50 (BTR stands for ''Bronetransporter'' (), literally "armored transporter") is a Soviet Union, Soviet tracked Amphibious vehicle, amphibious armored personnel carrier (APC) based on the PT-76 light tank chassis. The BTR-50 was developed ...
,
BTR-60 The BTR-60 is the first vehicle in a series of Soviet Union, Soviet eight-wheeled armoured personnel carriers (APCs). It was developed in the late 1950s as a replacement for the BTR-152 and was seen in public for the first time in 1961. BTR (vehi ...
; 100
BTR-152 The BTR-152 is a six-wheeled Soviet armoured personnel carrier (APC) built on the chassis and drive train of a ZIS-151 utility truck. It entered service with a number of Warsaw Pact member states beginning in 1950, and formed the mainstay of Sovi ...
wheeled armored personnel carriers, 310 Fiat 6614 and 6616s, and that BMR-600s had been reported. The IISS estimated that there were 210 towed artillery pieces (8 M-1944 100 mm, 100 M-56 105 mm, 84 M-1938 122 mm, and 18 M198 155 mm towed howitzers). Other equipment reported by the IISS included 82 mm and 120 mm mortars, 100 Milan and
BGM-71 TOW The BGM-71 TOW ("Tube-launched, Optically tracked, wire-guided missile, Wire-guided", pronounced ) is an American anti-tank missile. TOW replaced much smaller missiles like the SS.10 and ENTAC, offering roughly twice the effective range, a more ...
anti-tank guided missiles, rocket launchers, recoilless rifles, and a variety of Soviet air defence guns of 20 mm, 23 mm, 37 mm, 40 mm, 57 mm, and 100 mm calibre.


Ranks and insignia


Officers


Enlisted


See also

*


References

* *


Further reading

* Baffour Agyeman-Duah, The Horn of Africa: Conflict, Demilitarization and Reconstruction, Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1996, accessed at https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/view/11813/12632#a50 * Brian Crozier, The Soviet Presence in Somalia, Institute for the Study of Conflict, London, 1975 * Irving Kaplan et al., Area Handbook for Somalia, American University, 1969. * Nilsson, Claes, and Johan Norberg, "European Union Training Mission Somalia: A Mission Assessment", Swedish National Defence Research Institute, 2014. * * Zacchia, Paolo B.; Harborne, Bernard; Sims, Jeff. 2017. Somalia - Security and Justice Sector Public Expenditure Review. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/644671486531571103/Somalia-Security-and-justice-sector-public-expenditure-review {{Military of Somalia Armies by country Military of Somalia