US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has told Antiwar.com that it won’t share details about casualties in its airstrikes in Somalia as the new Trump administration “settles in.”
According to AFRICOM press releases, the US has launched at least 24 airstrikes in Somalia since President Trump was sworn in. Strikes have targeted the ISIS affiliate in northeastern Somalia’s Puntland as well as al-Shabaab, which has been on the offensive against the US-backed federal government in southern and central Somalia.
Until recently, AFRICOM would share estimates of casualties in its airstrikes in Somalia. In a press release dated April 12, AFRICOM said it launched a strike against ISIS-Somalia and that its “current assessment is that the airstrike killed one ISIS terrorist and that no civilians were harmed.”
But since then, AFRICOM’s press releases have become briefer and have not included casualty estimates or assessments of civilian harm. “Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security,” the command said in a release on its latest airstrike in Somalia.
“As the new administration settles in, we’re refraining from reporting estimated battle damage assessments and providing initial assessments on civilian harm probability as a matter of course,” AFRICOM spokesman Lt. Col. Doug Halleaux told Antiwar.com in an email on Friday.
“We’re expecting policy to follow guiding how and when these assessments are released, but until then, our shorter press releases post-strike will be the norm,” he added.
Halleaux said that AFRICOM would continue to publish quarterly civilian casualty assessments and that the “command has assessed that there have been no civilian harm or civilian casualties in any of our recent strikes – if that changes, it will be included in the quarterly reports.”
The lack of transparency in the air campaign in Somalia follows a similar policy to the recent bombing campaign in Yemen. Throughout about a month and a half of airstrikes, US Central Command offered no estimates of the number of people killed in particular strikes and provided no assessment on civilian harm. According to the Yemen Data Project, the US bombing campaign in Yemen killed over 200 civilians from March 15 to April 31.
