SUMMARY
General Morgan and Colonel Jess are both prominent warlords in Somalia, and their relationship is characterized by yearlong competition. This relation traces back to the ousting of President Barre and the conflict-thorn years that followed. Under President Barre, General Morgan was Minister of Defence and substitute Head of State, while Colonel Jess as the military leader of SPM (Somali Patriotic Movement) was directly involved in the revolution. Following Barre’s ousting both became high-ranking members of SPM and competed over influence and control of the organization; a battle that General Morgan won, forcing Omar Jess to leave SPM and to create SPM/SNA (Somali Patriotic Movement/Somali National Alliance).
The core of the conflict between General Morgan and Omar Jess in the southern Somali port city of Kismayo, the economic center of the southern part of the country. After the ousting of President Barre in 1991, General Morgan, in an SNF (Somali National Front), SPM and SSDF (Somali Salvation and Defense Force) alliance, succeeded in taking control over the city. It is unclear how this alliance started to fade but it seems fairly clear that it was not long until the occupying force in Kismayo had developed from an SNF, SPM and SSDF alliance into forces of General Morgan, who had grown stronger in the leadership. After splitting from SPM in late 1991, Omar Jess succeeded in taking control over the town in April of 1992. With the arrival of UN troops in Somalia, the situation changed again. Omar Jess and his SPM/SNA cooperated with and partly disarmed to the UN. General Morgan used this to re-capture Kismayo in March of 1993 (see the SPM – SPM/SNA conflict).
For the period between 1994 and 1997, there is little information about Kismayo, which seems to have been comparably calm, even though sporadic clashes between the two warlords occurred. One can assume that General Morgan controlled the city at the beginning of that phase, but it seems as if Colonel Jess, backed by Somali President Mohamed Ali Farrah Aideed, succeeded in taking control.
In 1997, the situation became clearer, yet remained complicated. At the beginning of the year, Kismayo was controlled by the Forces of Omar Jess, who could rely on the support of Hussein Aideed, Somalia’s self-declared President and son of the former self-declared President Mohamed Ali Farrah Aideed who died in 1996from injuries he caught in the fighting. The Majerteen subclan (Darod) further backed Colonel Jess. In the spring of 1997, General Morgan’s forces, supported by the Marehan subclan (Darod), started to attack and ultimately succeeded in taking control of Kismayo. Fighting between the two groups continued throughout 1998, but General Morgan managed to remain in control of the city. In September 1998, General Morgan declared “Jubaland", the region around Kismayo, as independent from Somalia, yet declaring simultaneously that the independence was not directed against Somalia and that he wanted to lead Jubaland back into Somalia as an autonomous region.
In February 1999, renewed heavy fighting in and around Kismayo broke out, and in June of that year General Morgan was ousted from the city. The forces driving General Morgan out were again led by Colonel Jess, this time under the umbrella of JVA (Jubba Valley Alliance), an alliance of several subclans and militias, backed by self-declared President of Somalia Hussein Aideed and opposing SPM and General Morgan (see the Forces of General Morgan – JVA conflict).
The non-state conflict between the Forces of General Morgan and the Forces of Omar Jess is first included in UCDP data in 1997. In August of that year fighting between the two groups led to more than 25 battle-related deaths.
