US Africa Command has announced in a press release that its forces launched an airstrike in Somalia on February 10, marking at least the 30th US airstrike in the country this year as the Trump administration continues bombing the country at a record pace.
The command said the strike targeted al-Shabaab about 30 miles to the northeast of the port city of Kismayo in southern Somalia’s Lower Juba province. The US-backed Somali government and al-Shabaab both reported clashes in the same area that day and made vastly different claims.
The US-backed Somali Defense Ministry said that the Danab, a special operations force armed and trained by the US, and local Jubaland forces conducted an operation against al-Shabaab and killed 14 militants. Al-Shabaab claimed that it carried out an ambush on a US-Somali military convoy and killed 32 people.
Neither side’s claims have been verified, and AFRICOM hasn’t replied to a media query from Antiwar.com asking if any US forces came under attack. AFRICOM also announced an airstrike on February 9 against al-Shabaab in the same area.
Thirty airstrikes by mid-February mark an unprecedented rate of US attacks in Somalia. President Trump launched a total of 124 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025, according to AFRICOM numbers, breaking the previous annual record for airstrikes in the country, which he set at 63 in 2019. If the current pace keeps up, Trump will shatter the record he set in 2025.
Besides bombing al-Shabaab, the US has also been launching airstrikes in Puntland against an ISIS affiliate, which first emerged in the country in 2015 as an offshoot of al-Shabaab. In Puntland, the US is backing the local government, which has been at odds with the US-backed Federal Government based in Mogadishu.
