US Africa Command announced in a press release that its forces launched an airstrike in Somalia on Sunday, March 8, the first known US strike in the country since the day the US and Israel launched the war with Iran.
AFRICOM said that the airstrike targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region about 44 miles southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bosaso. As usual, the command offered no other details about the attack.
“Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security,” AFRICOM said. The US backs the local Puntland government in its fight against ISIS fighters based in caves in a remote mountain region, but the US-backed forces have not released any recent statements about military operations.
The last airstrike in Somalia announced by AFRICOM was launched on February 28, the same day the US and Israel began bombing Iran. There appears to have been a lull in US strikes in Somalia since then, though AFRICOM sometimes doesn’t announce strikes until days or even weeks after the fact.
The March 8 strike marks at least the 43rd time the US has bombed Somalia this year. AFRICOM is still on track to break its annual record for total US airstrikes in Somalia, which it set at 124 strikes last year as President Trump oversaw a major escalation of the US air campaign in the country. For reference, the US launched 11 airstrikes in all of 2024 under President Biden.
US airstrikes in Somalia this year have also targeted al-Shabaab, a group the US has been fighting since it first emerged following a 2006 US-backed Ethiopian invasion that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu. The ISIS affiliate in Somalia started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab in 2015.
