Mohamed Qanyare Afrah (Maxamed Qanyare Afrax)

In short

Mohamed Qanyare Afrah was a founder of the United Somali Congress and one of the main armed figures in Mogadishu from the 1990s to 2006. This page records his public role from the sources, without taking sides.

Early career and the USC

Wikipedia records that he was born on 1 August 1941 in Ceelbuur, joined the Somali Police Force after independence in 1960, and went into exile in Kenya in the 1970s. On 26 January 1987 he co-founded and financed the United Somali Congress in Rome (Wikipedia, Mohamed Qanyare Afrah).

Daynile

After 1991 he held the Daynile area of Mogadishu, with its airstrip, and took part in peace conferences in Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya between 1993 and 1999 (Wikipedia; this part of the article is largely uncited). He represented the Murusade clan in later parliaments (Wikipedia).

The transitional governments

In February 2001 he joined the Transitional National Government as fisheries minister (Wikipedia, citing IRIN). He stood for president in October 2004 and placed third, behind Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and in December 2004 became security minister in the Transitional Federal Government; a Geeska Afrika report cited by Wikipedia put his militia at about 2,000 men (Wikipedia).

The 2006 alliance

In February 2006 he was among the founders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, headquartered in Daynile. Al Jazeera named him with Musa Sudi Yalahow, Omar Mohamoud Finish, Botan Issa and Bashir Raghe Shirar, and reported at least 18 dead in fighting with Islamic courts militias that week (Al Jazeera, 21 February 2006). In June 2006 the Islamic Courts Union drove his forces out of Daynile and he lost his cabinet post. He joined the government in Baidoa that July and returned to Mogadishu on 29 December 2006; in January 2007 he was among the first faction leaders to hand over his militia (Wikipedia, citing SomaliNet and the Associated Press).

Later life

In 2013 he gave up his parliamentary seat, which passed to his son, and he lived for a time in Nairobi. He died on 29 June 2019, aged 81 (Wikipedia, citing Hiiraan Online).

Sources differ

• End of his term as security minister. 2006 (Wikipedia's text) or July 2008 (its summary box).
• Place of death. Given as Nairobi or Mogadishu.
• Who backed the 2006 alliance. Reports said it had US support; the alliance described itself as a counter-terrorism body.

Read the primary sources yourself

• Al Jazeera, "Somali leaders take on extremists" (2006): article.