US Africa Command has announced that its forces launched two more airstrikes in Somalia as the Trump administration continues a record-shattering bombing campaign in the country that receives virtually no media coverage in the US.
AFRICOM said in one press release that it conducted a strike on October 21 that targeted al-Shabaab in the vicinity of Hargeisa Yare, a town about 58 miles northeast of the southern port city of Kismayo in the Lower Juba region.
In a second press release, AFRICOM said its forces launched a strike on October 23 targeting al-Shabaab about four miles northeast of Janale, a town near the coast in the Lower Shabelle region. Radio Ergo, an independent Somali news service, reported that heavy fighting and airstrikes in the area since early September have displaced more than 1,700 families.
AFRICOM offered no other details about either strike, as it stopped sharing casualty estimates and assessments on potential civilian harm last year. US-backed Somali forces also haven’t put out statements about military operations in those areas.
The two bombings bring the total number of US airstrikes in Somalia this year to 90, more airstrikes than the US ever launched in Somalia before 2025, when President Trump shattered the previous record for annual US strikes by launching 124. The previous record, which he set in 2019, was 63.
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 emerged as 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 US has also been bombing an ISIS affiliate in Puntland, which started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.
