Mohamed Farrah Aidid

Mohamed Farrah Hassan Garad, known as General Aidid or Aideed (Somali: Maxamed Faarax Xasan Garaad, 'Caydiid Garaad'; Arabic: محمد فرح حسن عيديد; 15 December 1934 – 1 August 1996) was a Somali general and diplomat.

Educated in both Rome and Moscow, he served as a chief in the Italian colonial police force and later as a brigadier general in the Somali National Army. He would eventually become chairman of the United Somali Congress (USC), and soon after the Somali National Alliance (SNA). Along with other armed opposition groups, he succeeded in toppling President Siad Barre's 22 year old regime following the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991.

Aidid possessed aspirations for presidency of the new Somali government, and would begin to seek alliances and unions with other politico-military organizations in order to form a national government.

Following the June 5, 1993 attack on the Pakistanis, the SNA—and by extension, Aidid—were blamed for the death of 25 UNOSOM II peacekeepers, causing him to become one of the first "Wanted Men" of the United Nations. After the US-led July 12, 1993 Abdi House raid, which resulted in the death of many eminent members of his Habr Gidr clan, Aidid began deliberately targeting American troops for the first time. President Bill Clinton responded by implementing Operation Gothic Serpent, and deploying Delta Force and Task Force Ranger to capture him. The high American casualty rate of the ensuing Battle of Mogadishu on October 3–4, 1993, led UNOSOM to cease its four month long mission.

In 1995, Aidid declared himself president of Somalia. He was killed the following year in Mogadishu on August 1, 1996.