Adm. James Kilby, the US Navy’s chief of naval operations, has claimed that the US recently launched the “largest airstrike in the history of the world” in an attack on Somalia.
Kilby said US fighter jets fired 125,000 pounds of bombs “from a single aircraft carrier into Somalia.” A US official told Business Insider that Kilby was referring to a February 1 bombing of ISIS fighters in northeast Syria’s Golis Mountain range in the Puntland region.
The official said 16 F/A-18 Super Hornets launched the strikes from the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman as it was operating in the Red Sea, and that the attack targeted a sprawling cave complex. The head of Somalia’s Puntland region claimed at the time that 46 ISIS fighters were killed by the US bombing.
The February 1 strike marked the first time the US bombed Somalia under the new Trump administration. Since then, the US has launched another 24 strikes on the country, according to AFRICOM press releases, in attacks that have targeted both ISIS in Puntland and al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia.
The pace of airstrikes marks a significant escalation in the US air war in Somalia. For comparison, in all of 2024, the US launched nine airstrikes in the country. President Trump also dramatically escalated the bombing campaign in his first term and set the record for the number of US airstrikes in Somalia in a single year at 63 in 2019.
Kilby also discussed the US bombing campaign in Yemen, which ended when President Trump announced the ceasefire with the Houthis on May 6. In about a month and a half, the US military said it launched over 1,000 strikes on Yemen, and the attacks killed more than 200 civilians.
Kilby said the Harry Truman and its strike group launched 670 strikes on Yemen and engaged 160 drones and missiles that the Houthis fired at Israel, US warships, and shipping lanes.
