Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Mohamed Farah Aideed, the Somali warlord who became Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States in the early 1990s, received arms and other aid from one of Saudi Arabia’s leading charities, according to a recently discovered Defense Department intelligence report.
Aideed was the focus of an intense manhunt in the Somalia capital of Mogadishu in 1993 by the U.S. military as it attempted to stabilize the war-torn country and help the U.N. distribute relief supplies to the starving populace. That pursuit eventually led to the October downing of a U.S. Army helicopter and rescue attempt (portrayed in the movie “Black Hawk Down”) that resulted in the deaths of 18 American soldiers—an event that prompted the eventual withdrawal of the U.S. from Somalia.
A Pentagon intelligence assessment produced in the 1990s said that Aideed’s forces were given weapons by the Saudi High Commission, a government agency headed by a senior member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz. That document was discovered by lawyers representing thousands of Americans attempting to sue the Saudi government for its alleged role in helping the September 11 terrorists attack New York and Washington.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Document Links Saudi Charity to Somalian Arms (by Chris Mondics, Philadelphia Inquirer)
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