Early Life
Osman Hassan Ali Atto is a member of the Somali Hawiye clan, sub-clan Habar Gedir (sub-clan Sa'ad and the hiloowle and was born in 1945. Atto is his nickname meaning "skinny". Osman Ali Atto is a former main financier of the Aidid faction, a multi-millionaire businessman, alleged arms dealer and drug trafficker. Atto owns the biggest landed property in Somalia, including many of the buildings in Mogadishu which are rented to relief agencies and the media. Before the Civil War, Atto was a chauffeur to various representatives for the US oil company Conoco. Osman Ali Atto has 22 children. Atto derives significant profits from a tanker-trucking company which operates from a strategically situated truck yard at Eldoret, in north-western Kenya. From there, Atto ships gasoline to Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. This business is allegedly operated by his relatives. In addition to his Somali passport, Atto uses passports from Kenya, the United States and possibly Italy.
Read more about this topic: Osman Ali Atto
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I have given the best of myself and the best work of my life to help obtain political freedom for women, knowing that upon this rests the hope not only of the freedom of men but of the onward civilization of the world.”
—Mary S. Anthony (1827–1907)