US Africa Command announced on Monday that its forces launched another airstrike in Somalia as the Trump administration continues bombing the country at a record pace.
AFRICOM said in a press release that the strike occurred on February 3 and targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region, about 25 miles to the southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bosaso. The command provided no other details about the attack.
The US has been backing the local Puntland government in its fight against ISIS-Somalia in a remote mountainous region, a bombing campaign that’s involved heavy strikes on caves. AFRICOM has also been conducting airstrikes against al-Shabaab in southern Somalia in support of the US-backed Mogadishu-based Federal Government.
The latest strike marks at least the second US bombing in Somalia this month and the 28th of the year, as AFRICOM conducted 26 in January, a monthly pace that, if kept up, would result in over 300 US airstrikes in the country in 2026, which would shatter the record 124 airstrikes the US launched in 2025.
Senior Trump administration officials have not discussed the campaign in Somalia since it gets virtually no media attention and they’re never asked about it, but based on comments from AFRICOM leadership, all signs indicate the airstrikes will continue indefinitely.
The US has been involved in the country for many decades and has been fighting against al-Shabaab since it first emerged following a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups that briefly held power in Mogadishu, and led to the creation of the current government.
