US Africa Command said in a press release on Thursday that its forces launched an airstrike in southern Somalia on April 15, the same day the US-backed Somali government announced major attacks against al-Shabaab that it said involved airstrikes supported by “international partners.”
As usual, AFRICOM offered barely any details on the strike, saying only that it targeted al-Shabaab about 46 miles northwest of the southern port city of Kismayo, which puts the attack in Lower Juba, Somalia’s southernmost region.
The Somali Defense Ministry said in an April 15 press release that its forces conducted “airstrike operations” against al-Shabaab in Lower Juba and also in the regions of Bay, Hiraan, and Lower Shabelle. The ministry said that a total of six airstrikes supported by “international partners” were launched.
“The airstrikes killed 54 Al-Shabaab militants and wounded several others. They also successfully targeted supply stockpiles, significantly weakening the group’s logistical capacity, mobility, and ability to organize attacks against Somali civilians,” the ministry claimed.
The numbers are not confirmed, and the US-backed government has an interest in inflating al-Shabaab casualties and has a history of hiding civilian casualties.
So far, the US has only acknowledged one airstrike in Lower Juba, and it remains unclear if it also conducted the airstrikes in the other regions. The Somali military could have received air support from Turkey, which has deployed Bayraktar TB2 drones and F-16s to Somalia.
The US airstrike brings the total number of US bombings in Somalia this year to at least 55, as the Trump administration continues the record-breaking bombing campaign with virtually no media coverage. Besides the attacks on al-Shabaab, the US has also been bombing an ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region.
President Trump has overseen a dramatic escalation of the US air war, launching 124 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025, nearly double the previous annual record, which he set at 63 during his first term in 2019.
The US has been involved in Somalia for decades and has been fighting al-Shabaab since the George W. Bush administration backed an Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a Muslim coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu after taking the city from CIA-backed warlords.
Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, and its first recorded attack was a suicide bombing in 2007 that targeted Ethiopian troops occupying Mogadishu. It wasn’t until 2012 that the group pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. The ISIS affiliate in Puntland started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.
