US Africa Command announced on Sunday that its forces have launched two more airstrikes in Somalia, bringing the total number of US bombings in the country this year to at least 100, an unprecedented number.
AFRICOM said that the airstrikes were launched on November 21 and November 22 about 37 miles southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bosaso, where US-backed forces have been fighting against an ISIS affiliate in the Caal-Miskaad Mountains.
The command offered no other details about the strikes as it stopped sharing casualty estimates and assessments on civilian harm earlier this year. “Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security,” AFRICOM said.
The Puntland Counter-Terrorism Operations claimed on Saturday that a US airstrike killed “five fleeing ISIS terrorists” and also said its forces detained a Moroccan national, who it said was the “head of GPS navigation systems” for the ISIS affiliate. The US supports local Puntland forces in the region because the US-backed Federal Government, based in Mogadishu, doesn’t control the region.
Garowe Online, a media outlet based in Puntland, reported that Puntland officials said their forces took control of one of the last known ISIS positions in the Balade Valley, the area of the Caal-Miskaad mountains where recent fighting has been focused.
The Puntland government has come under criticism recently over reports that the UAE has been shipping weapons to Sudan to arm the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been accused of committing genocide and recently committed massacres against civilians after it took the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region. According to a report from Middle East Eye, the US has also been using the airbase in Bosaso to support its military operations in Somalia.
The Trump administration has continued to provide support for the Federal Government’s fight against al-Shabaab in southern Somalia and provided heavy air support for an offensive in Somalia’s southern Jubaland region earlier this month. According to local media reports, a suspected US airstrike on the town of Jamame in Jubaland over the weekend killed 12 civilians, including eight children.
AFRICOM told Antiwar.com on Friday that its forces launched a total of 98 airstrikes in Somalia so far in 2025, making the two latest airstrikes the 99th and 100th of the year.
The Trump administration has shattered the previous annual record for US airstrikes in Somalia, which President Trump set at 63 back in 2019. For context, President Biden launched a total of 51 airstrikes in Somalia throughout his four years in office, and President Obama launched 48 over eight years. Despite the unprecedented number of US airstrikes this year, there is virtually no media coverage of the air war in US media.
The US has been fighting against al-Shabaab since the group first emerged in 2007, a year after the US backed an Ethiopian invasion that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a Muslim coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, and its first recorded attack was a suicide bombing that targeted Ethiopian troops occupying Mogadishu. The ISIS affiliate in Somalia that’s now based in Puntland started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.
