Somalia, 1971 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 25 May 1971, corresponding to the arrest of Vice President General Mohamed Ainanshe Guleid and General Salaad Gabeyre Kediye on charges of plotting against President Siad Barre of Somalia. After Barre's bloodless coup of 21 October 1969, the Supreme Revolutionary Council had presented a collective leadership, with Kediye holding the honorary title Father of the Revolution and Ainanshe serving as a vice president. As Barre consolidated personal control, this collective facade broke down.
Following the earlier disgrace of Police Chief Jama Korshel, in May 1971 Ainanshe and Kediye were arrested and charged with engineering a plot to kill the revolution, that is, to assassinate Barre and overturn the SRC. They were brought to trial and, together with Colonel Abdulkadir Dheel, publicly executed by firing squad on 3 July 1972. The arrests consolidated Barre's autocratic control by purging potential rivals from the ruling council.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
52005251971
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Barre survived and consolidated power; Ainanshe, Kediye and Dheel were executed in July 1972.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. 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
Luttwak
The Sun
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 →