US Africa Command announced on Tuesday that its forces launched an airstrike in Somalia on July 13 as the Trump administration continues its record-breaking bombing campaign in the country, a war that is ignored by US media.
AFRICOM said that its forces targeted al-Shabaab in the vicinity of Sablaale, a town about 120 miles southwest of Mogadishu. As usual, the command offered no further details about the strike, having stopped sharing casualty estimates and assessments of potential civilian harm last year.
The US-backed Somali Defense Ministry announced that its forces conducted an operation in Sablaale the same day as the US airstrike. It said that the Danab, a US-trained and armed special operations force of the Somali military, participated in the operation and claimed that seven al-Shabaab fighters were “neutralized.”
The Somali Defense Ministry also announced another operation in the Hiraan region, north of Mogadishu, that it said involved airstrikes with the support of “international partners,” suggesting there was yet another US bombing. The ministry claimed that the airstrikes “neutralized” 42 al-Shabaab militants, but the numbers aren’t verified, and the US-backed Somali military is known for hiding civilian casualties.
The July 13 US airstrike marked at least the 74th US airstrike in Somalia this year, according to AFRICOM’s numbers, putting the command on track to break its annual record, which it set at 124 in 2025. Besides the bombing campaign against al-Shabaab, the US has also been launching airstrikes against an ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeast Puntland region.
President Trump has overseen a massive escalation of the US air war in Somalia since his return to office, which came after he loosened the rules of engagement by lifting restrictions on US drone strikes and raids carried out outside of officially declared combat zones. According to New America, an organization that tracks the air war, the 124 airstrikes launched in 2025 are more than those conducted during the administrations of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush combined.
