Turkish F-16 fighter jets have carried out airstrikes outside Mogadishu as US-backed Somali federal government forces have been locked in a major battle with al-Shabaab over Basra, a village about 22 miles northwest of the Somali capital.
Garowe Online reported that Turkish strikes targeted al-Shabaab, but Ankara and Mogadishu have yet to officially confirm them. Local sources told Garowe that the strikes caused heavy casualties, including dead and wounded, but they did not provide a number.
The Somali Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces were “conducting a major operation against al-Shabaab militants on the outskirts of Basra” and claimed that Somali troops “neutralized a number of al-Shabaab militants, including two leaders” and seized weapons.
The Somali Guardian reported that government forces and al-Shabaab have been fighting over Basra for more than a week and that both sides have claimed to inflict heavy casualties, but no numbers have been confirmed. The report noted that the village of Basra has changed hands more than a dozen times since 2011, following a pattern in the conflict of government forces being unable to solidify gains made against al-Shabaab.
The heavy fighting comes amid a political crisis in Somalia sparked by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s decision to stay in power despite his term expiring, something he justifies by the changes his government made to the constitution. The federal government has been clashing with local state governments, and al-Shabaab has been able to capitalize on the crisis.
The Trump administration has dramatically ramped up US airstrikes in Somalia, but it’s unclear if the US has launched any strikes during the battle for Basra. The last strike US Africa Command took credit for in Somalia occurred on August 7 and targeted al-Shabaab in Jilib, a village about 200 miles southwest of Mogadishu.
Turkey has also been increasing its support for the federal government and its airstrikes in Somalia, though there’s no sign that either the ramped-up US and Turkish airstrikes have made a difference in the war. Besides bombing al-Shabaab in southern Somalia, the US has also conducted an air war against an ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region, and recently signed a deal with the local Puntland government to expand its military presence in Bosaso, a port city on the Gulf of Aden.
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.
