Mohamed Ali Samatar (; 1 January 193119 August 2016), also known as Ali Samatar was a Somali politician and lieutenant general. A senior member of the Supreme Revolutionary Council, he also served as the Prime Minister of Somalia from 1 February 1987 to 3 September 1990. Early years Samatar was born in 1931 in Kismayo, Somalia. For his post-secondary education, Samatar studied at the Frunze Military Academy in the former Soviet Union (Военная академия им. М. В. Фрунзе), an elite institution reserved for the most qualified officers of the Warsaw Pact armies and their allies. Somali Democratic Republic A lieutenant general in the Somali National Army (SNA), Samatar was a key figure in Somali politics throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During the Ogaden campaign of the late 1970s, he led all SNA units and their Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) affiliates. He also served as national Defense Minister from 1980 to 1986. Samatar was a member of President Siad Barre's ruling Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC). In May 1986, Barre suffered serious injuries in a life-threatening automobile accident near Mogadishu, when the car that was transporting him smashed into the back of a bus during a heavy rainstorm. He was treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia for head injuries, broken ribs and shock over a period of a month. Samatar, who was then serving as Vice President of Somalia, subsequently served as de facto head of state for the next several months. Although Barre managed to recover enough to present himself as the sole presidential candidate for re-election over a term of seven years on December 23, 1986, his poor health and advanced age led to speculation about who would succeed him in power. Possible contenders included his son-in-law General Ahmed Suleiman Abdille, who was at the time the Minister of the Interior, in addition to Barre's vice president, Lt. Gen. Samatar. From February 1, 1987, to September 3, 1990, Samatar was the national Prime Minister, the first person to fill that post since 1969 (Since the 1969 revolution that overthrew the civilian government). Following the outbreak of the civil war in 1991 and the collapse of the Barre regime, Samatar moved to the United States in order to escape persecution as a member of the former government. According to Mario Sica, then Italian ambassador to Mogadishu, although the United Somali Congress (USC) professed that it was fighting against the