US Africa Command said in a press release on Thursday that its forces launched an airstrike in Somalia on December 24.
AFRICOM claimed that according to its “initial assessment” of the strike, two al-Shabaab fighters were killed, and no civilians were harmed, although the Pentagon is notorious for undercounting civilian casualties in Somalia.
The command said the strike was launched 10 kilometers southwest of the town of Quyno Barrow, which is in the southern Middle Juba region.
The bombing comes after a lull of US airstrikes in Somalia. The last US strike claimed by AFRICOM in Somalia occurred on July 15, although it’s possible other US attacks have been launched that haven’t been made public.
The US strike comes a few weeks after Jubaland, the southern Federal Member State of Somalia, which includes the Middle Juba region, suspended relations with the US-backed Mogadishu-based federal government. The move came after the federal government rejected Jubaland’s election results.
Tensions over the election led to clashes between federal troops and local Jubaland forces. On Monday, clashes broke out again in the of Doolow, which is on the border of Ethiopia, and Ethiopian troops reportedly intervened on the side of the local Jubaland forces.
Al-Shabaab is expected to exploit the destabilization of Jubaland. The US military claims al-Shabaab is a threat to the US due to its size and al-Qaeda affiliation, but it’s widely believed the group does not have ambitions outside of Somalia.
Al-Shabaab was born out of a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that toppled the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups who briefly held power in Mogadishu after ousting CIA-backed warlords.
Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union. The group’s first recorded attack was in 2007, and it wasn’t until 2012 that al-Shabaab pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda after years of fighting the US and its proxies.
