Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF)

What was the WSLF?

The Western Somali Liberation Front, in Somali Jabhadda Xoreynta Soomaali Galbeed, was an armed movement. Its aim was independence for the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region of Ethiopia and union with Somalia (Wikipedia, WSLF). "Western Somalia" was its name for the Ogaden.

It was backed by the Somali government of Siad Barre and fought beside the Somali National Army in the Ogaden War of 1977 to 1978 (Human Rights Watch, Evil Days, 1991).

Where did it come from?

• 1948 to 1955: Britain handed the Ogaden and, later, lands east of Jigjiga to Ethiopia. Somali leaders there asked for self-determination, without result (Council on Foreign Relations, The United States in World Affairs, 1964).
• 1963: a rising known as Nasrallah, or the Ogaden Liberation Front, began with about 300 men and grew to about 3,000. Ethiopia's counter-insurgency led to the 1964 border war between Ethiopia and Somalia (Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2014).
• 1965 to 1975: Nasrallah opened offices in Mogadishu, Iraq and Syria. Its fighters became the core of the WSLF (RAND, Rebels and Separatists in Ethiopia).

How was it founded?

After the Derg took power in Ethiopia in 1974, and during a severe drought in the Ogaden, Ogaden Somalis pressed the Barre government to support a renewed armed struggle. By 1975 it agreed (Wikipedia, citing Abdi 2021). Members debated whether to call the movement "Ogaden" or "Western Somali"; the second name won (same source).

In January 1976 a general conference met about 100 km north-west of Mogadishu. It elected a 25-member committee, with Abdullahi Hassan Mahmoud as the first leader (same source). The front set up a youth wing, the Western Somali Youth Organization (Ghent University, Afrika Focus; MERIP, June 1982).

Many Harari and Muslim Oromo people also joined. The anthropologist I. M. Lewis wrote that Oromo support reached into its command (Wikipedia, citing Lewis, Saints and Somalis, 1998). Somalia also set up a sister front for Oromo areas, the Somali Abo Liberation Front (Human Rights Watch, 1991).

How was it organised?

It had four brigades, Afar Gaas (Wikipedia, citing Cambridge University Press):

• Duufaan (First Brigade)
• Ahmed Gurey (Second Brigade), the largest, named after the 16th-century leader Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi
• Horyaal (Third Brigade)
• Ciil Tire (Fourth Brigade)

What happened in 1976 to 1978?

• Early 1976: full guerrilla war began in the north and south of the Ogaden and spread into Bale and Sidamo (Praeger, Political Conflict on the Horn of Africa).
• 1 June 1977: fighters cut the Addis Ababa to Djibouti railway, which carried about 70 percent of Ethiopia's exports. It stayed closed until August (Gebru Tareke, The Ethiopian Revolution).
• Early 1977: Somalia sent about 3,000 soldiers to fight as guerrillas with the front (Human Rights Watch, 1991).
• 13 July 1977: the Somali army invaded. Somalia's government said in public that the fighting was by the WSLF. By September, Somali and WSLF forces held about 90 percent of the Ogaden and took Jigjiga (same source).
• Early 1978: with new Soviet equipment and Cuban troops, Ethiopia pushed them back (RUSI Journal, 1983).
• 11 March 1978: after the Somali army withdrew, the WSLF leader said the front would keep fighting (Halgan, SRSP journal).

What happened after the war?

• 1978 to 1979: the front retook much of the countryside. By the end of the 1970s it was estimated at 18,000 fighters, the second-largest rebel force in Ethiopia after the Eritrean EPLF (Gebru Tareke).
• 1979: a CIA review found that the Ethiopian-backed Somali Salvation Democratic Front fought poorly against the WSLF, which had wide support among Somalis (CIA, Africa Review, 1979). The same year its Isaaq wing, Afraad, clashed with the main force (Human Rights Watch, 1991).
• August 1980: Ethiopia's "Operation Lash" used six divisions, about 60,000 men. The WSLF withdrew into northern Somalia (Gebru Tareke).
• 1982 to 1984: the Somali National Movement, backed by Ethiopia, fought the WSLF in north-west Somalia. In December 1984 it forced the front out of its bases there (Human Rights Watch, 1991).
• 1984: members of the youth wing founded the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) (Wikipedia).
• By 1989: the WSLF had stopped operating as a fighting force (same source).

Related pages

• The Ogaden War, 1977
• Somali National Movement
• Somali Salvation Democratic Front
• The Siad Barre era