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SNM Leadership & Field Commanders — A Roster

1981–1991 · five chairmen, the officers who built its military wing, and what became of each of them

Everywhere else in this archive documents what was done to the Isaaq. This page documents who fought back, and how the movement that eventually liberated Somaliland was actually led — chairman by chairman, front by front, and what became of each of them.

Five chairmen, chosen democratically

The SNM was founded in London on 6 April 1981 by Isaaq exiles including Hassan Isse Jama, Hassan Adan Wadadid, Ahmed Mohamed Gulaid, and Omar Elmi Dihood. Over the following decade it held six congresses and rotated through five elected chairmen — a record of peaceful internal leadership transition unusual among the armed factions of the Somali civil war.

1. Ahmed Mohamed Gulaid ("Jimale"), Oct 1981 – Jan 1982. Resigned voluntarily amid internal tension, setting the precedent. Died in exile in Cairo, 31 December 1992.
2. Yusuf Sheikh Ali Madar, Jan 1982 – Nov 1983. Led the SNM's religious wing; later became Somaliland's first Foreign Minister, then Speaker of the Guurti (House of Elders) until his death on 23 July 2004.
3. Col. Abdiqadir Kosar Abdi, Nov 1983 – Aug 1984. A defected Somali Army colonel who led the SNM's military wing before briefly leading the whole movement. Killed in an ambush on the Ethiopia–Somaliland border, 12 July 1987.
4. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud ("Silanyo"), 1984 – April 1990. The longest-serving chairman, leading the SNM through its most expansive and difficult period, including the 1986 loss of Ethiopian sanctuary and the 1988 offensive. Later Somaliland's fourth President (2010–2017). Died 15 November 2024.
5. Abdirahman Ahmed Ali ("Tuur"), April 1990 – May 1991. Led the SNM through the Barre regime's final collapse and became Somaliland's first President upon independence. Died 8 November 2003.

The officers who built its military wing

The SNM's fighting capacity came substantially from Somali National Army officers who defected, bringing training, discipline, and inside knowledge of the government's forces. The first two defectors, in January 1982, were Colonels Ahmed Dahir Nur ("Ahmed Dhagax") and Aden Sheikh Mohamed ("Aden Shine").

Col. Mohamed Hashi Lihle ("Lixle") became the movement's founding military commander, planning and leading the SNM's first major operation — the 2 January 1983 raid on Mandera Prison. SNM's own reports claimed over 700 prisoners freed; independent estimates put the number of genuine political dissidents closer to a dozen, among a larger general prison population — no verified list of individual prisoners has been found despite research. Weeks later, in February 1983, Siad Barre personally visited the north and ordered the release of a separate group of detained civil servants and businessmen, a damage-control gesture distinct from those freed in the raid itself. Lihle was killed on 17 October 1984 leading an assault at Burco-Duuray, after the Somali Army had 78 hours' advance warning of the attack; he is remembered as a national hero, with roads and districts in Somaliland named after him.

Col. Abdillahi Askar (Barkhad), nicknamed the "Lion of Gode" for his role destroying two Ethiopian divisions at the 1977 Battle of Godey, joined the SNM shortly after its founding. On 8–10 April 1983 he was arrested by the National Security Service during a covert operation in Hargeisa and held at the fortified Birjeex facility within Gen. Gani's own 26th Division compound, where he was tortured — burned across his body with candles and cigarettes — ahead of a planned public execution timed to coincide with the Somali Armed Forces' anniversary on 12 April. Hours beforehand, an 11-man SNM team led by Ibrahim Ismail Koodbur — who was secretly SNM while simultaneously serving as the 26th Sector's own public relations officer — stormed the facility and freed him, in what became known as Operation Birjeex. Askar went on to command the western unit in the SNM's November 1984 three-pronged invasion, suffering catastrophic losses (347 of 383 men killed) attacking Dilla in Awdal, before surviving to take part in the successful 1988 invasion of Hargeisa. He died naturally in Hargeisa on 29 August 2010, honored with a state funeral; a military academy in Dararweyne now bears his name.

Abdillahi Hussein Iman Darawal was sent by the Somali government to the Soviet Union in 1970 to study artillery at Odessa, returning in 1973 as a lieutenant — part of the same Soviet-trained officer pipeline that produced several other commanders on this roster. In 1988, amid the government's crackdown following the SNM's northern offensive, he was detained in Mogadishu; he went on to serve as an SNM Senior Commander from 1988 until the war's end in 1991. He survived the war and had a substantial postwar political career, serving as Somaliland's Minister of Justice (1995–96) and Minister of Defence (1996–98), and remains politically active today.

Mohamed Farah Dalmar Yusuf ("Muhammad Ali") had an extraordinary combat record predating the SNM itself — the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Aden Emergency, the WSLF, and Afraad — before becoming SNM's military leader from 1981. He was killed by a government airstrike on 28 July 1988 while commanding troops during the Battle of Burao, already documented on this archive's Bombardment of Burao page.

The fronts, region by region

By the mid-1980s the SNM operated as several distinct regional commands rather than a single force:

• Eastern front (Gashamo base) — Col. Mohamed Kahin Ahmed, who led the 25 November 1984 raid on the Golis mountains that provoked the reprisal executions in Sheikh and Burao already documented on this archive's 1984 Reprisal Executions page. Kahin is alive today and currently chairs Kulmiye, one of Somaliland's three political parties.
• Western front (based at Sheikh from 1984) — Col. Ibrahim Hussein ("Dhegaweyne"), said to have never lost a battle, part of the group that entered Hargeisa on the night of 31 May 1988. Later a leading commander in Somaliland's internal "Calan Cas" conflict of the 1990s.
• Deputy commander of the western/central front — Mohamed Ahmed ("Dayib Gurey"), who led the actual 1988 invasion of Hargeisa and later became Somaliland's Trade Minister. Died in the late 1990s in Hargeisa.
• 99th division, Zeila — General Mohamed Hasan Abdullahi ("Jidhif"), who defended the Awdal region for four years after 1991. Died recently in Somaliland; one unconfirmed account holds he died in Saudi Arabia and was returned to Hargeisa for burial.

Hassan Yonis Habane commanded a 700-man SNM contingent at Laanqayrta and went on to twice serve as Chief of the General Staff of the Somaliland Armed Forces, dying on 27 November 2006.

Also identified but not yet fully researched: Haybe Ahmed Gure ("Haybe Laambad"), listed among prominent SNM commanders — distinct from a separately named Mohamoud Haybe Omer in the same command rosters. Mohamed Haji Muse ("Hagarwaafi"), one of only two SNM war heroes with a physical memorial (at Aw Barkahdle, with schools also named after him in Oodweyne) — Habar Yonis, a subclan of Isaaq, per direct community correction, not Dhulbahante as one single forum source had suggested. Col. Abdillahi Haji Saeed, reportedly executed near Burao by forces under Gen. Gani in February 1982, shortly before the first wave of officer defections — resting on a single source, not yet independently corroborated. Mujahid Hassan Saleban ("Ina Saleebaan Weyne"), widely described as the first high-ranking SNM officer to die on the western front, with a monument at Balli-Cabane; independently confirmed as a named martyr in Farshaxan's own roll call, though the exact date and circumstances of his death remain unconfirmed. Mahdi Ali, who commanded the 5th Battalion at Gabiley during the 1988 Hargeisa invasion. Ahmed Macallin Haaruun and Col. Abdillahi Cuddo, both named in the same Farshaxan martyrs' roll call, with Cuddo separately linked to a shared grave at Laas Geel and to a still-unverified connection to the 1984 hijacking.

Sources

• Wikipedia — "Somali National Movement" Main article on the SNM's founding (London, 6 April 1981), leadership succession, and organizational structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_National_Movement
• Somaliland Standard / Horn Diplomat — "The Rebirth of Somaliland (5): The Formation of the SNM" Names the first wave of officer defectors, including Ahmed Dhagax and Aden Shine (January 1982), and the network of internal coordinators. https://somalilandstandard.com/the-rebirth-of-somaliland-5-the-formation-of-the-snm-and-liberation-struggle/
• Somaliland Standard — "The Rebirth of Somaliland (6): SNM Liberation Struggle and Tactical Operations" Details the SNM chairmanship succession and early base structure (Gashamo, Aware, Jigjiga fronts). https://somalilandstandard.com/the-rebirth-of-somaliland-6-the-snm-liberation-struggle-and-tactical-operations/
• Somaliland Standard / Horn Diplomat — "The Rebirth of Somaliland (13): How the SNM Invaded the North" Details the Madina and Makka divisional fronts and their commanders ahead of the 1988 offensive. https://somalilandstandard.com/the-rebirth-of-somaliland-13-how-the-snm-invaded-the-north/