Somali Islamist insurgent leader Aden Hashi Ayro, +/-35
Posted: Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 8:20 am197? - May 1, 2008
Aden Hashi Ayro was one of the most feared and notorious figures in Somalia whose powerful influence in the country showed most starkly the depths of anarchy and brutality to which it has sunk.
Tall, painfully thin and with what local journalists who had met him described as anger-filled eyes, Ayro’s brief life — he is believed to have been in his early thirties when he was killed by an American air strike — was one of unremitting violence.
With little formal education, Ayro became an Islamist fighter as a teenager in the early 1990s after the overthrow of the veteran Somali dictator Mohammed Siad Barre. He is said to have taken part in every major battle involving Islamist militias since then. …
Aden Hashi Ayro is reported to have received military training in Afghanistan, where he almost certainly came into contact with senior al-Qaeda figures, possibly including Osama bin Laden himself. … Read full obituary
