US Africa Command (AFRICOM) issued a statement on Thursday reporting that a US airstrike on Wednesday in Somalia killed at least 24 “al-Shabaab extremists.” The strike was reportedly near Shebeeley, in the Hiran region.
The AFRICOM statement offered even fewer details than most of the scores
of US strikes against Somalia, not even making the usual excuses of
preventing al-Shabaab’s ability to act. They did, of course, say there
were no civilian casualties.
This is the first major report of casualties following a bizarre pair of
statements from Africom earlier this month, during which they announced
that they would no longer offer death tolls in Somalia, and then just
days later announced they would start doing so again.
US strikes in Somalia have tended to have little oversight, with the
Somali government generally backing the official US assessment, and the
rare times when Somali civilians try to report civilian deaths in such
strikes they face an uphill battle getting any officials to admit to it.
Or maybe they just crashed another wedding party. Who’s there to report objectively?
“Extremists”…lol
This coming from the country that employs Wahhabists in the CIA, like the head of the so called Iran desk, MIchael D’Andrea.