Educated in both Rome and Moscow, he began his career during the 1950s serving as a police chief in the Italian ruled United Nations trusteeship security forces.

Along with other armed opposition groups in early 1991, he succeeded in toppling President Barre's 22 year old regime, leading to the full outbreak of the civil war.

[3] Following the 5 June 1993 clash that resulted in the death of dozens of UNOSOM II troops, the SNA—and by extension, Aidid—were blamed, causing him to become one of the first wanted men of the United Nations.

After the US-led 12 July 1993 Bloody Monday raid, which resulted in the death of many eminent members of his Habr Gidr clan, Aidid began deliberately targeting American troops for the first time.

The high American casualty rate of the ensuing Battle of Mogadishu on 3–4 October 1993, led UNOSOM to cease its four month long mission.

[5][6] During a battle in Mogadishu between his militia and the forces of his former ally Osman Ali Atto, Aidid was fatally wounded by a sniper and later died on 2 August 1996.

[8] During the era of the British Military Administration he moved to Galkayo in the Mudug region to stay with a cousin, a policeman who would teach Aidid to both type and speak in Italian.

М. В. Фрунзе) in the Soviet Union for three years, an elite institution reserved for the most qualified officers of the Warsaw Pact armies and their allies.

[2][12] In 1969, a few days after the assassination of Somalia's President Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a military junta known as the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC), led by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, would take advantage of the disarray and stage a bloodless coup d'état on the democratically elected Somali government.

[16] Aidid was eventually released in October 1975, and he returned to service in the Somali National Army to take part in the 1977-1978 Ogaden War against Ethiopia.

[17] In one of the final Somali offensive actions of the war, SNA brigades under Aidid's command attacked Ethiopian forces holding the strategic Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway in March 1978, aiming to delay and divert the enemy as the rest of the army withdrew.

According to Aidid, several Soviet Armed Forces military experts embedded with the Ethiopian/Cuban army—who had previously worked with him in Somalia—shifted their focus from the withdrawing SNA to his brigades upon recognizing his presence on the Dire Dawa front.

[19][20][21][22] He was highly critical of how Barre handled the SNA withdrawal from the Ogaden and later charged that the president failed to, "give promotions or medals to those who fought heroically".

[15] During the 1982 war with Ethiopia, Aidid, serving under General Yusuf Ahmed Salhan, was a top Somali National Army commander, leading the defense of central Somalia’s border regions against Ethiopian military offensives.

Being a member of the Hawiye clan, a high ranking government official and an experienced soldier, Aidid was deemed a natural choice for helping lead the military campaign for the United Somali Congress against the regime, and he was soon persuaded to leave New Delhi and return to Somalia.

[15] From base camps near the Somali-Ethiopian border, he began directing the final military offensive of the newly formed United Somali Congress to seize Mogadishu and topple the regime.

[16] The USC was at that time split into three factions: USC-Rome, USC-Mogadishu, later followed by USC-Ethiopia; as neither the first two former locations were a suitable launching pad to topple the Barre regime.

In October 1990, the SNM, SPM and USC would sign an agreement to hold no peace talks until the complete and total overthrow of the Barre regime.

[15] By November 1990, the news of Gen. Aidid's USC forces overrunning President Siad Barres 21st army in the Mudug, Galgudud and Hiran regions convinced many that a war in Mogadishu was imminent, leading the civilian population of the city to begin rapidly arming itself.

[31] In January 1993, Special Representative of the UN in Somalia, Ismat Kittani, requested that Aidid come to the Addis Abba Peace Conference set to be held in March.

[32] In early May 1993, Gen. Aidid and Col. Abdullahi Yusuf of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) agreed to convene a peace conference for central Somalia.

[35] As the conference began, Aidid sought assistance from UNOSOM ambassador Lansana Kouyate, who proposed air transport and accommodation for delegates.

[38] The contention between the Somali National Alliance and UNOSOM from this point forward would begin to manifest in anti-UNOSOM propaganda broadcast from SNA controlled Radio Mogadishu.

[40] Each major armed confrontation with between UNOSOM II forces and the SNA was noted to have the inadvertent effect of increasing Aidid's stature with the Somali public.

[46] After the cessation of hostilities between the SNA and UNOSOM, Special Representative Lansana Kouyate (replacing Adm. Johnathan Howe) successfully launched an initiative to normalize relations in March 1994.

The withdrawal of UNOSOM forces weakened Aidids prominence within the SNA, as the war had served to unify the alliance around a common foreign enemy.