Somali National Alliance

Somali National Alliance
Isbahaysiga Qaranka Soomaaliyeed
AbbreviationSNA
ChairmanMohamed Farrah Aidid
Osman Ali Atto
Hussein Farrah Aidid
Founded16 June 1992 (16 June 1992)
Dissolved2002 (2002)
Split fromUnited Somali Congress
Merged intoSomalia Reconciliation and Restoration Council
and
Transitional National Government
HeadquartersMogadishu
IdeologyHawiye interests
Anti-Barre
Anti-colonialism
Somali nationalism
National Reconciliation
ReligionSunni Islam

The Somali National Alliance (abbreviated SNA) was a major politico-military faction formed on 16 June 1992 by four different rebel groups that had been in opposition to the regime of former Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre. The SNA was the first major inter-clan and inter-factional political alliance and was considered to be among the most powerful factions of the Somali Civil War. The alliance would most notably face off against the second phase of the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II) in the latter half of 1993.

Following the 1991 split in the United Somali Congress (USC) between Mohamed Farah Aidid and his primary rival Ali Mahdi Muhammad and the routing of Barre's forces out of Somalia and into Kenya during 1992, a tentative military coalition that had existed between different rebel organizations would morph into the politico-military organization known as the SNA. The alliance would include Aidid's breakaway wing of the USC, the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM), the Somali Southern National Movement (SSNM) and Somali Democratic Movement (SDM). The organization professed the goal of working toward forming a national reconciliation government and an eventual multi-party democracy.

The SNA would ultimately become the core of the Somalia Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), formed in 2001, which would be incorporated into the internationally recognized Transitional National Government in 2002.