SUMMARY

The fighting which erupted between DSA (Digil Salvation Army) and USC/SNA (United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance) can be linked to USC/SNA’s occupation of most of south Somalia in the 1990s. USC/SNA, whose members were mostly from the Hawiye clan, taxed the areas under its control in order to finance their armed struggles. In 1999 a group in Qoryoley in Lower Shabelle, resisted this taxation: DSA.

Clashes soon erupted also in neighbouring towns and turned into a struggle of gaining, and regaining, control of the different towns in the area. The clashes were fierce and at times DSA also assisted their clan brethren in RRA (Rahanweyn Resistance Army) who were also fighting USC/SNA. One tactically important area was an airstrip which was used by USC/SNA in order to fly in supplies, allegedly from Eritrea.

The non-state conflict between USC/SNA and DSA is first included in UCDP data in 1999. In July of that year violent clashes flared up in the Lower Shabelle region, and by August they had caused over 25 deaths.