US Africa Command said on Tuesday that its forces launched an airstrike in southern Somalia on December 31, which it claimed killed 10 al-Shabaab militants.
The command said the strike was launched on a town about 35 kilometers southwest of the southern port city of Kismaayo. AFRICOM claimed that its “initial post-strike assessment” found no civilians were harmed, though the Pentagon is notorious for hiding civilian casualties in Somalia.
AFRICOM framed the attack as a “collective self-defense airstrike” since it was launched in support of the Mogadishu-based government’s forces fighting on the ground.
“In addition to the airstrike, US forces provided support to Somali forces by evacuating Soldiers that were attacked while fighting the terrorist group,” AFRICOM said.
The strike was the second that AFRICOM launched in December. The last US attack took place on December 24, the first known US airstrike in Somalia since July 15, 2024. AFRICOM claimed the December 24 strike killed a senior al-Shabaab leader, Mohamed Mire, and another militant.
The renewed US airstrikes come as the US-backed government has been losing power in Jubaland, the southernmost federal state of Somalia. The US-backed government rejected Jubaland’s November election results, leading Jubaland to suspend relations with Mogadishu.
The tensions have resulted in some clashes between federal government forces and local Jubaland forces, which are backed by Ethiopia. Both recent US airstrikes took place in Jubaland as there are concerns that al-Shabaab is taking advantage of the crisis.
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.
