Ministry of Defence (Somalia)

Historically, Somali society conferred distinction upon warriors (waranle) and rewarded military acumen. All Somali males were regarded as potential soldiers, except for the occasional religious cleric (wadaado).[2] Somalia's many Sultanates each maintained regular troops. In the early Middle Ages, the conquest of Shewa by the Ifat Sultanate ignited a rivalry for supremacy with the Solomonic dynasty.

In 1914, the Somaliland Camel Corps was formed in British Somaliland and saw service before, during, and after the Italian invasion of the territory during World War II.[2]

After independence, the Darawishta merged with the former British Somaliland Scouts and new recruits to form a 5,000 strong Somali National Army.[3] The new military's first commander was Colonel Daud Abdulle Hirsi, a former officer in the British military administration's police force, the Somalia Gendarmerie.[2] Officers were trained in the United Kingdom, Egypt and Italy. Despite the social and economic benefits that military service brought, the Somali Armed Forces began to suffer chronic manpower shortages only a few years after independence.[4] After the 1969 Somali coup d'état, most Ministers of Defence were drawn from the Supreme Revolutionary Council until 1990-91. The subsequent outbreak of the Somali Civil War from the late 1980s led to the armed forces disintegrating totally.

Somalia's armed forces were gradually reconstituted after the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004. After the creation of the Transitional Federal Government in 2010, several ministers succeeded each other. Abdihakim Mohamed Fiqi, a former Somali diplomatic with service in Washington, became Minister of Defence in mid-November 2010. While he had known that Al-Shabaab occupied the Ministry of Defence building at the time, he had not realised the weaknesses of the interim MOD premises in the privately owned Jidda Hussein building.[5] There, the ministry had only two rooms, without internet or electricity. Thus the handshake transfer of responsibility - there was nothing more to hand over - took place in the palace, in the living room of the Somali Armed Forces commander.

• Minister of Defence
  • Deputy Minister
    • Secretary-General
      • Under the Authority of Secretary-General
        • Internal Audit and Investigation Division
        • Somali Armed Forces Council Secretariat
        • Key Performance Indicator Unit
        • Legal Division
        • Strategic Communications Unit
        • Integrity Unit
      • Deputy Secretary-General (Development)
        • Development Division
        • Procurement Division
        • Somali Armed Forces Cataloguing Authority
      • Deputy Secretary-General (Policy)
        • Policy and Strategic Planning Division
        • Defence Industry Division
        • Defence Reserve Depot
      • Deputy Secretary-General (Management)
        • Human Resource Management Division
        • Information Management Division
        • Finance Division
        • Account Division
        • Administration Division
      • Chief of Defence Forces
        • Chief of Army
        • Chief of Navy
        • Chief of Air Force
        • Joint Force Commander
        • Director of General Defence Intelligence
        • Chief of Staff Somali Armed Forces Headquarters

Major General Muhammad Ainanshe, a member of the SRC, lost his portfolio of Minister of Defence on 10 April 1971 before his arrest on 4 May 1971.[6]

Portrait	Name (Birth–Death)	Term of office			Political party
		Took office	Left office	Time in office
• Somali Democratic Republic (1969–1991) •
	Lieutenant General Mohammad Ali Samatar (1931–2016)	1976	October 1981	5–6 years		SRSP
	Brigadier General Omar Haji Mohamed[8] (?–?)	October 1981	?	?
	General Aden Abdullahi Nur (?–2002)	1986(?)	1988	1–2 years		SRSP
	Hussein Sheikh Abdirahman (1941–2016) First civilian Defence Minister under Barre[9]	1989	1990	0–1 years		SRSP
• Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (2004–2012) •
	Hussein Sheikh Abdirahman (?–2016) [10]	2008	2008	0 years		Independent
	Mohamed Abdi Mohamed (born 1954)	21 February 2009	10 November 2010	1 year, 262 days		Independent
	Abdihakim Mohamoud Haji-Faqi	12 November 2010	20 July 2011	250 days		Independent
	Hussein Arab Isse	20 July 2011	4 November 2012	1 year, 107 days		Independent
• Federal Republic of Somalia (2012–present) •
	Abdihakim Mohamoud Haji-Faqi	4 November 2012	17 January 2014	1 year, 74 days		Independent
	Mohamed Sheikh Hassan	17 January 2014	27 January 2015	1 year, 10 days		Independent
	Abdulkadir Sheikh Dini	27 January 2015	21 March 2017	2 years, 53 days		Independent
	Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohamed	21 March 2017	Incumbent	3 years, 96 days		Independent

• Website
• Benadir Regional Administration - Transitional Federal Government of Somalia