The Somali flag is a five-pointed white star set in a field of azure blue. The star is a proud symbol of irredentist nationalism, its five points representing the five territories in the Horn of Africa that are principally inhabited by Somali peoples: former British Somaliland, former Italian Somalia, Djibouti, the northeastern region of Kenya, and the Ogaden desert of Ethiopia. The first two of these territories together constitute the sovereign territory of the Somali Democratic Republic; annexation of the other three has been that republic's central foreign policy aim since it achieved independence in 1960. During the summer of 1977, smoldering guerrilla activity in the Ogaden desert erupted into an interstate conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia. President Siad Barre of Somalia, aware of the turmoil and internal divisions rending Ethiopia, had evidently concluded that the time was ripe to attach a third point to the Somali star – the Ogaden. Equipped with modern Soviet weapons, thousands of regular Somali troops invaded the Ogaden in July, joining forces with the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), a guerrilla army supported by Mogadishu that already controlled parts of the eastern Ogaden.