Post-independence The
air base was formerly known as 'Beledal Amin' and served as the
Somali Air Force's largest airfield. Built in part by the
Soviet Union, in 1975 the
runway was lengthened to 10,500 feet and paved. In the 1990s it was noted that Baledogle possessed the second largest runway in
Africa. With the aid of the
Soviet Armed Forces, a jump school was established at Baledogle when Somalia's first
paratrooper unit was formed during the early 1970s.
Somali National Army General
Abdulkadir Sheikh Dini would serve as commander of the military training school on the base from 1982 to 1985.
Civil war Several days before President
Siad Barre's flight from Mogadishu in January 1991, the
Somali Patriotic Movement, which was allied with the
United Somali Congress, seized control of the airbase from the government. Following Barre's departure and retreat into southern Somalia, his remaining forces regrouped as the
Somali National Front and successfully recaptured Baledogle in April 1992, positioning themselves to launch an offensive to reclaim Mogadishu.
United Nations intervention deploying to Baledogle on 13 December 1992 On 13 December 1992, four days after the deployment of
U.S. military forces in Somalia, Baledogle airfield was peacefully secured by an
air assault consisting 450 soldiers of the
10th Mountain Division and 230
Marines, with the assistance of 12
AH-1W SuperCobra attack helicopters,
UH-1N Twin Huey and
CH-46E Sea Knight. U.S. forces proceeded to establish an operating base at the airfield to lead relief efforts in the area and further to south in the
Kismayo,
Beledweyne, and
Merca humanitarian relief sectors. Baledogle had been designed for
fighter aircraft and consequently had difficulty supporting a consistent large scale
airlift. Transport aircraft like the
C-141B Starlifter and
C-130H Hercules would be capable of landing at the airfield, but the repeated heavy touchdowns would begin to disintegrate the runway, eventually leading to the termination of
C-141B operations in mid-January 1993. During
UNOSOM II, the airport was home to elements of the U.S.
10th Mountain Division. By January 1993 the entire
HMLA-369 'Gunfighters' USMC
attack helicopter squadron was deployed at the airfield. The
HMLA-369 would log 1,098 flight hours from the base on various missions before being moved to
Mogadishu international Airport the next month.
Somali National Alliance control Following the withdrawal of UN forces in 1995, the
Somali National Alliance (SNA) led by Gen.
Muhammad Farah Aidid would take control of Baledogle Airfield. On 25 July 1996, the
Somali Salvation Alliance (SSA) led by Aidids prime rival
Ali Mahdi Muhammad and aided by a break away faction of the
SNA led by
Osman Ali Atto, would seize control of the airbase. The ensuing battle would result in 24 casualties, with seven deaths. Three days later on 28 July 1996, the
SNA launched a
counter-offensive and engaged in a four-hour battle to recapture the airfield. Following intense exchange of fire between the two sides, which involved the use
RPG-7's,
machine guns, and anti-aircraft missiles, the SNA successfully regained control of the base. In January 1999, the
Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) would accuse
Eritrea of carrying out an arms supply to
SNA through flights using the airfield. According to a
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report, on 7 March 1999, an aircraft containing a 15 man delegation consisting of four
Iranians and four
Libyans along with seven
Iraqis landed at Baledogle Airfield to assess possible
Uranium extractions in Somalia. On 14 February 2001, a large Somali passenger aircraft landed at the airport for the first time. The plane, along with two other smaller ones, has just been bought by a local private company,
Air Somalia. The large aircraft would carry 160 passengers and be tasked with conducting international flights, while the two light planes were used for
domestic flights.
Warlords and Islamic Courts Union After the dissolution of the
Somali National Alliance in 2002, Baledogle airfield would come under the control of various
warlords until 2006. The airfield would receive an average of nine aircraft a month and generated an estimated profit of $319,200
USD annually through landing and cargo fees. In October 2003, President
Abdiqasim Salad Hassan of the
Transitional National Government (TNG) would be the target of an
assassination attempt at the airport.
CIA flights to the airport during the 2000s would be used to fund and supply American proxies in Somalia. The
Islamic Courts Union (ICU) would seize control of the airbase during the summer of 2006.
Iran had also reportedly used the airfield to deliver arms, and consequently the
ICU used the base as a weapons stash. On 25 December 2006 the
Ethiopian Air Force bombed ICU positions at the airfield. An Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman justified the attack, "...because illegal flights were attempting to land there." During April 2007,
Al-Shabaab forces under the direction of
Mukhtar Robow formed a base at
Bulo Marer in order to launch attacks on Baledogle. On 25 January 2008, three
Transitional Federal Government soldiers were killed when the airbase was briefly seized by Al-Shabaab. The insurgents looted the airbase for arms and ammunition during the incident. The next month two large contingents of troops would desert the base, including the entire 19th Battalion. On 7 July 2008, a battle between Islamic Courts insurgents and TFG militia occurred near the base. Fierce fighting was reported by locals living near the base between the Ethiopian military and insurgency the following month. Later that year the TFG commander of the base,
Colonel Ibrahim Hassan Isse, along twenty-six other military personnel would resign after publicly accusing
TFG President
Abdullahi Yusuf of being a foreign puppet. Commander Ibrahim would state at an interview on the base that, "The Somali Government is a slave of the Ethiopians and the so-called President is an old puppet," Following the incident, even more soldiers deployed to the area reportedly
deserted. A UN report claimed that eyewitnesses had seen the TFG forces recruiting and training
child soldiers at the base in 2008. fighters |180x180px
Al-Shabaab Control By 2009
Al-Shabaab had completely seized control of the airfield and turned it into a training center. In June of that year Somali President
Sharif Sheikh Ahmed would privately urge the US government to carry out an
airstrike on the base after claiming that Somali authorities had information that
Chechen and
Bosniak foreign fighters had been seen "living openly" there. The
IGAD would publicly call on the
UN Security Council to enforce a
no-fly zone over the airfield in order to cut off arms supplies to the militants. Following the mass withdrawal from Mogadishu by
Al-Shabaab forces on 6 August 2011, most senior foreign fighters in the organization would fly south out of Balidogle to the strategic port city of
Kismayo.
Capture by AMISOM and U.S. forces buildup (2012–present) military
sniper with
AMISOM watches for
Al-Shabaab militants from the
control tower at Baledogle Airfield in 2012|left In October 2012,
AMISOM forces would capture Baledogle Airfield from
Al-Shabaab. The
Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) AMISOM contingent would be tasked with holding the Baledogle sector. Following the capture of the base by
AMISOM in 2012,
U.S. forces in Somalia began operating from the airbase. Starting 2014, the Somali commando
Danab Brigade was trained by the U.S. military and headquartered at Baledogle.
JSOC was also reported to have started operating at the base sometime around 2016. The airfield is also host to a regular contingent of
US Marines and a
Special Forces team. The buildup coincided with an escalation by US forces in their fight against
Al-Shabaab.
September 2019 Al-Shabaab attack Later referred to as "...the most formidable publicly known attacks on U.S forces in Somalia in 30 years", on 30 September 2019
Al-Shabaab militants attacked the base with
car bombs and infantry. According to U.S. military officials, the militants had been repulsed without breaching the perimeter fence, and no casualties had been taken.'' By December 2020 the Ugandan military aviation unit contingent had been deployed to Camp Baledogle. The aviation unit, comprising a crew of 140 personnel and 4 helicopters, brought the total of military aircraft to 7 of the 12 authorized for
AMISOM. The repositioning of US military forces out of Somalia in 2021 led to the release of previously rare pictures at Baledogle, including images of a secretive US "ghost" surveillance aircraft, referred to by its
N27557 registration number.
N27557 is a twin-engine
Beechcraft King Air turboprop with the US civil registration. Crewed fixed-wing aircraft have previously operated from Baledogle since 2012 and have been primarily utilized for intelligence,
surveillance, and
reconnaissance missions. While
N27557 is noted to lack any sensor turret, it does have a number of straight blade antennas underneath the
fuselage of an unknown type sometimes associated with systems to intercept
Al-Shabaab's communications, including from
cell phones, or other kinds of
signals intelligence. In September 2022, Somali president
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud arrived in Washington and discussed the possibility of escalating air raid operations by US marine forces from Baledogle with US Defence Secretary
Lloyd J. Austin III. == Facilities ==