Somalia, 1961 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 10 December 1961 a group of British-trained junior military officers from the former British Somaliland attempted a coup in the northern city of Hargeisa against the newly unified Somali Republic, in protest at the terms of the 1960 union between the former British and Italian Somali territories. The officers, aggrieved that the union had subordinated the north to a southern dominated government in Mogadishu and that a referendum had rejected the unitary constitution in the north, tried to seize control of the northern regions and reverse the merger. The revolt collapsed quickly when their own enlisted soldiers, reportedly led by non-commissioned officers, refused to follow them and the rebellion found no wider support.
President Aden Abdullah Osman Daar's government suppressed the rising, and the coup leaders were arrested, though a court later declined to convict them on a technicality. The union held, and Somalia continued under civilian rule until the 1969 military coup.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
52012101961- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-520-1961-12-10
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Aden Abdullah Osman Daar and the unified Somali government survived the northern revolt and preserved the union.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →