For the second time in the past week, US forces carried out an airstrike in Somalia on Tuesday, killing one person who the US is accusing of being a member of al-Shabaab. They credited the Somali Army for providing targeting information.
The attack was the 60th strike of the year in Somalia, near the town of Dujuuma. US officials made a point of calling the unnamed slain man a “terrorist,” and emphasized that no civilian casualties happened.
The statement, like most out of AFRICOM, seems designed primarily to preempt any question about legality of strikes in Somalia, giving the impression that the attacks are coordinated with the Somali government and have a war on terrorism relation.
Whether accurate or not, the US strikes in Somalia are not seen to have a substantial impact in the situation on the ground, and locals have repeatedly complained that the US has killed civilians in past attacks, something the US generally denies.
US Carries Out Second Somalia Airstrike in Past Week
General says Somali Army making progress in targeting
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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