SUMMARY
WSLF (Western Somali Liberation Front) was an armed group active in the Ethiopian Ogaden territorial conflict. From the 1200s to 1974, Ethiopia was an independent empire that eventually became known as “Abyssinia”; it was one of the few African states that avoided colonization by an European power. Abyssinia was ruled by a succession of Emperors, of which Haile Selassie I was the last one. In September 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by a Marxist-Leninist military junta that later became known as the Provisional Military Council (PMAC); the junta was however most known as the “Derg”, which was a shortened version of its name. The new Derg-led Government of Ethiopia then initiated the implementation of a socialist system, and the purging of opposing elements. Not long after the coup, the Derg began facing an ever increasing number of domestic challengers, both those striving for government power and those with separatist agendas. At the time, the Ethiopian government was also involved in a territorial dispute with Government of Somalia over the Ogaden region in south-eastern Ethiopia, which in 1964 had escalated into open armed conflict between the two states. It was in this context that WSLF emerged.
WSLF’s primary goal was initially to “liberate” the part of eastern Ethiopia that was called “Western Somalia”; the group claimed to pursue independence for the Somali ethnic group, which inhabited the areas it claimed. WSLF later specified its claim as including all territory in the Ogaden region east of a line running from Moyale (on the Ethiopian-Kenya border) through Awash (on the edge of the Rift Valley, about 100 miles east of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital) to El Adde (on the border with Djibouti). The group also claimed that it would allow the people of Ogaden to decide whether the territory should merge with Somalia or not, after it had been liberated from Ethiopia.
While the exact details of WSLF’s creation were not entirely clear, the group most likely emerged at some point in 1974 or 1975. While it was not possible to confirm, WSLF may have had links to a defunct separatist group called the Ogaden Liberation Front, which had been active in the 1960s. Allegedly, the remnants of this group had been reorganized as the United Front for Western Somalia (UFWS), which then changed its name to WSLF in January 1975. Somalia also played a central role in WSLF’s formation, as a Somali separatist movement in Ogaden could help facilitate the Government of Somalia’s attempts to annex the Ogaden region; in fact, some sources suggested that WSLF was a purely Somalian irredentist group. However, some sources stated that a man called Yusuf Dheere Mohamed Sugaal founded the group with support from the President of Somalia, Siad Barre. Nevertheless, during is most active years in the late 1970s, WSLF was led by “Secretary General” Abdulahi Hassan Mahmud, who also served as the group’s top military commander.
In 1976 and 1977, WSLF had around 3-4000 fighters that had begun to infiltrate Ethiopia from Somalia in 1975. Many of the group’s cadre members had been recruited among Ogaden Somali refugees in camps in Somalia. By 1978, the group had grown significantly and was able to field around 20 000; this number had dwindled to just a few thousand by the early 1980s. At the height of its territorial reach, WSLF controlled a substantial part of Ogaden. WSLF also enjoyed some popular support in the parts of Ogaden where it operated.
Aside from playing a key role in WSLF’s formation, Somalia also provided the group with considerable non-warring secondary support. For example, Somalian officers provided the WSLF fighters with training in military techniques such as mine laying and anti-tank operations. Somalia also supplied weapons, such as mortars, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and AK-47 assault rifles. Somalia also supported the rebels financially, politically and diplomatically and its leadership was allowed to have its office in Mogadishu. Furthermore, the Somalian government provided WSLF with rear bases, the main ones located in the Hargeisa area in the northwestern part of Somalia. Starting in early 1977, Somalia also began providing warring secondary support, as it sent around 3000 soldiers to fight alongside WSLF. In July 1977, the Somalian involvement in Ogaden escalated into a full-scale interstate armed conflict between Somalia and Eritrea; this conflict was fought parallel to the WSLF insurgency. By the early 1980s, most of the Somali support to WSLF had stopped.
It was also very possible that WSLF cooperated militarily with fellow Ethiopian rebel group SALF, as both movements enjoyed close relationships with Somalia; some sources even suggested that SALF was the “Oromo wing” of WSLF. However, there was no conclusive information on the status of the relationship between the two groups, and the groups even clashed with each other occasionally due to overlapping geographical claims. In 1984, a WSLF splinter faction broke away from the group to create the ONLF.
After the 1977-78 conflict in Ogaden, WSLF was forced to retreat from Ethiopian territory into Somalia. The Government of Ethiopia also launched a series of successful operations against the group’s remaining forces in Ogaden in 1979 and 1980; this left WSLF militarily weakened. The group was weakened further by the Government of Somalia’s decision to cease its support to the group in the 1980s. By 1989, WSLF was no longer a functioning armed group.
