US Launches Airstrike in Somalia, Claims al-Shabaab Fighters Killed

The US launched an airstrike in Somalia on March 15 targeting al-Shabaab, US Africa Command said in a press release on Monday.

AFRICOM said the strike occurred 150 kilometers northeast of Mogadishu in support of the US-backed Mogadishu-based government and described it as a “collective self-defense strike” even though no US troops were involved in fighting on the ground.

AFRICOM claimed that its “initial assessment” found that “enemy combatants were killed and that no civilians were injured or killed,” although the Pentagon is notorious for hiding civilian casualties in Somalia.

The attack marks the second known US airstrike in Somalia this month. The last attack occurred on March 1, and AFRICOM conducted several airstrikes in Somalia in February, targeting ISIS in the northeastern Puntland region and al-Shabaab in central Somalia.

Al-Shabaab has been on the offensive, and the US-backed government has also said it has been receiving air support from the UAE and Ethiopia. The federal government claimed that 50 al-Shabaab militants were killed by airstrikes on March 12 after the militant group laid siege to a hotel in the central town of Beledweyne.

Middle East Eye reported this week that Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur, Somalia’s defense minister, was fired on Sunday due to US pressure. US officials were reportedly unhappy with his coordination with Turkey and Ankara’s deepening involvement in the country. The report said the US pressured the government to fire Nur by threatening to reconsider military support for Mogadishu.

The recent US airstrikes in Somalia came after President Trump eased restrictions on US airstrikes and special operations raids outside conventional battlefields. US officials said at the time that the step was taken with al-Shabaab in mind.

The US military hypes the threat of al-Shabaab 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.