US Africa Command said in a press release on Thursday that its forces launched an airstrike in Somalia on December 24.
AFRICOM claimed that according to its “initial assessment” of the strike, two al-Shabaab fighters were killed, and no civilians were harmed, although the Pentagon is notorious for undercounting civilian casualties in Somalia.
The command said the strike was launched 10 kilometers southwest of the town of Quyno Barrow, which is in the southern Middle Juba region.
The bombing comes after a lull of US airstrikes in Somalia. The last US strike claimed by AFRICOM in Somalia occurred on July 15, although it’s possible other US attacks have been launched that haven’t been made public.
The US strike comes a few weeks after Jubaland, the southern Federal Member State of Somalia, which includes the Middle Juba region, suspended relations with the US-backed Mogadishu-based federal government. The move came after the federal government rejected Jubaland’s election results.
Tensions over the election led to clashes between federal troops and local Jubaland forces. On Monday, clashes broke out again in the of Doolow, which is on the border of Ethiopia, and Ethiopian troops reportedly intervened on the side of the local Jubaland forces.
Al-Shabaab is expected to exploit the destabilization of Jubaland. The US military claims al-Shabaab is a threat to the US due to its size and al-Qaeda affiliation, but it’s widely believed the group does not have ambitions outside of Somalia.
Al-Shabaab was born out of a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that toppled the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups who briefly held power in Mogadishu after ousting CIA-backed warlords.
Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union. The group’s first recorded attack was in 2007, and it wasn’t until 2012 that al-Shabaab pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda after years of fighting the US and its proxies.
Here again, it's all for Zionism and its Third Reich … uh, … I mean Temple. (Please do not erase)
We do not erase the truth at antiwar.com! We, indeed, promote it!
I have noticed you can even use the word "Zionism" around here. Anywhere else it's a trigger word for the comment to get deleted or shadow banned.
Last week I wrote a comment in which I used the J-word for survivors of the Holocaust ( which was obviously true and not derogatory), but it was rejected. When I resubmitted it with "Israelis" it was fine. I really don;t get it.
It was, in fact, derogatory (it concerned a claimed absence of empathy). Vis a vis Zionists (a political group that people choose to belong to), that’s fine. Vis a vis “the Jews” (an ethnic group in which membership is inherent/involuntary), it’s a slur that violates this site’s guidelines.
I do not swear, don't think it accomplishes much but reading the lineup this morning here about Israel and the USA I feel like letting lose some powerful swear words. what the heck are we doing back in Somalia doing what we do best – killing people?
That is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind, running around the world and killing and controlling people.
It accomplishes plenty. It keeps your head from exploding. That's why you "feel" like letting loose. It's natural.
There used to be a web site a couple of decades ago which had a forum just for people to come and swear about this or that which upset them (which occasionally produced interesting if profane discussions). I used to go to hamsterdance.com instead and just watch the silly hamsters spin around for a minute. (My co-irkers knew when I was having a bad day when they heard the hamsterdance music.)
”I met a man from AFRICA… He came to call my name! He told me there were diamond minds and there that I should go! The streets were paved with gold!”….
The US military claims al-Shabaab is a threat to the US
Of course they do, better give them a couple hundred billion dollars more to protect us from the fearsome terriers!!!
The government says that al-Shabaab has an enormous army of 7,000-10,000, ready to overwhelm our pitifully small force of only 2,860,000!!!
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/terrorist_groups/al_shabaab.html
The only thing that the US military is good for anymore is playing Wack-a-mole with aboriginal tribal people who have no air defenses or industry.
When a nation attacks another without declaring war the act becomes a terrorist act and the nation is a terrorist state
Well said!!!
Thank you. It had to be said
Despicable acts by a despicable government.