Somali Armed Forces

The Somali Armed Forces are the military forces of the Federal Republic of Somalia. Headed by the president as commander-in-chief, they are constitutionally mandated to ensure the nation's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. In 1990 the Armed Forces were made up of the Army, Air Force, Air Defence Force, and Navy. From the early 1960s to 1977, the period when good relations existed between Somalia and the Soviet Union, the Armed Forces had the largest armored and mechanized force in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to Barre's increasing reliance on his own clan, splitting the Armed Forces along clan lines, and the Somali Rebellion, by 1988 they began to disintegrate. By the time President Siad Barre fled Mogadishu in January 1991, the last cohesive army grouping, the 'Red Berets,' had deteriorated into a clan militia. An unsteady rebuilding process began after 2000, and gained pace after the Djibouti Agreement of 2008. The northeastern region of Puntland maintains its own separate military forces.