forces commander General Daud Abdulle Hirsi (Hawiye/Abgaal) placed the most senior northerner, Colonel Mohamed Haji Ainashe, as head of the army in the north. By October 1962 British officials were reporting that there was a Northern Military Zone with its headquarters in Hargeisa, supervising two battalions in Hargisa and Bur'ao, while in the south, Army HQ in Mogadishu supervised four battalions, at Mogadishu, Beletweyne, Galkayo, and Baidoa. These four battalions plus smaller units were to come under control of a planned Southern Military Zone. The force was expanded and modernized after the rebellion with the assistance of Soviet and Cuban advisors. The Library of Congress wrote in the early 1990s that '[i]n 1962 the Soviet Union agreed to grant a US$32 million loan to modernise the Somali army, and expand it to 14,000 personnel. Moscow later increased the amount to US$55 million. The Soviet Union, seeking to counter United States influence in the Horn of Africa, made an unconditional loan' and set a 'generous twenty-year repayment schedule.' However other sources date the Somali-Soviet discussions to October 1963 or later, and discuss how the United States, West Germany, Great Britain, and Italy tried and failed to get Somalia to accept a Western counteroffer through 1962 and 1963. The army was tested in 1964 when the conflict with Ethiopia over the Somali-inhabited Ogaden erupted into warfare. On 16 June 1963, Somali guerrillas started an insurgency at Hodayo, in eastern Ethiopia, a watering place north of Werder, after Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie rejected their demand for self-government in the Ogaden. The Somali government initially refused to support the guerrilla forces, which eventually numbered about 3,000. However, in January 1964, after Ethiopia sent reinforcements to the Ogaden, Somali forces launched ground and air attacks across the border and started providing assistance to the guerrillas. The Ethiopian Air Force responded with punitive strikes across its southwestern frontier against Feerfeer, northeast of Beledweyne, and Galkayo. On 6 March 1964, Somalia and Ethiopia agreed to a cease-fire. At the end of the month, the two sides signed an accord in Khartoum, Sudan, agreeing to withdraw their troops from the border, cease hostile propaganda, and start peace negotiations. Somalia also terminated its support of the guerrillas. Soviet advisors, among them General Vasily Shakhnovich, began to arrive in 1969. The Institute for Strategic Studies listed Somalia for the first time in its green-covered Military Balance 1970-71, estimating total armed