Please find attached two documents that provide information further to that provided in Responses to Information Requests SOM6503 of 16 July 1990, SOM6462 of 19 July 1990, SOM9850 of 3 December 1991, SOM15220 of 10 September 1993 and SOM19446.E of 30 January 1995. Please note that brief references to the Red Berets or Red Hats can also be found in Responses to Information Requests SOM3461 of 3 January 1990 and SOM9977 of 30 December 1991.

One of the attached documents provides some detail on the organization and operations of the Red Berets (Duub Cas), describing it as "a dreaded elite unit recruited from among the president's Mareehaan clansmen" (Somalia: A Country Study 1993, 49). The source also describes this unit as one "whose members acted as bodyguards for Siad Barre, and which was commanded by Siad Barre's eldest son" (ibid., 154). The other attachment does not refer by name to the Red Berets, but describes a massacre that involved "members of the 77th Sector of the army, which is under the personal command of Masleh Mohamed Siad Barre, the son of the president" (News from Africa Watch 21 July 1989, 1). This source does not clarify whether the commander of the army unit was the eldest of the President's sons. However, the first attachment attributes this massacre to the Red Berets (Somalia: A Country Study 1993, 52). For additional information, please refer to the attached documents.

This response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

News from Africa Watch [New York]. 21 July 1989. "Somalia: Tiananmen Square Revisited: Soldiers Shoot Demonstrators: Reprisal Killings and Mass Arrests Follow."

Somalia: A Country Study. 1993. Edited by Helen Chapin Metz. Washington, DC: Library of Congress.

News from Africa Watch [New York]. 21 July 1989. "Somalia: Tiananmen Square Revisited: Soldiers Shoot Demonstrators: Reprisal Killings and Mass Arrests Follow," pp. 1-2.

Somalia: A Country Study. 1993. Edited by Helen Chapin Metz. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, pp. 48-52, 154, 224.