US Africa Command said in a press release on Monday that its forces launched an airstrike in Somalia on November 8, marking at least the 90th time that the US has bombed the country this year.
AFRICOM said the strike targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region and that it was launched about 40 miles southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bosaso, a remote area of the Cal Miskaad mountains. The command offered no other details about the strike, as it had stopped sharing casualty estimates and assessments on civilian harm earlier this year.
“Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security,” the command said.
The US backs local security forces in Puntland, as the US-backed Federal Government, which is based in Mogadishu, doesn’t control the territory. In 2024, the Puntland government withdrew from the federal system in response to President Hassan Sheikh’s move to amend the constitution.
The Puntland government has come under criticism recently over reports that the UAE has been shipping weapons to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan through an air base in Bosaso. The RSF has been accused of committing genocide in Sudan, and its fighters committed atrocities against civilians after it took the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region in October.
The US has been providing Puntland with significant air support in its war against Somalia’s ISIS affiliate. At the end of October, AFRICOM conducted airstrikes in Puntland’s Caal-Miskaad mountains for three consecutive days.
Somalia’s ISIS affiliate is an offshoot of al-Shabaab, a group the US has been fighting since 2007, when it emerged following a US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. This year, the US has also been providing air support to the Federal Government in battles against al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia.
The US air war in Somalia receives virtually no media coverage in the US despite the Trump administration bombing the country at a record pace. President Trump has shattered the annual record for US airstrikes in Somalia, which he previously set at 63 during his first term in 2019.
For context, President Biden launched a total of 51 airstrikes in Somalia throughout his four years in office, and President Obama launched 48 over eight years.
