US Africa Command said in a press release on Wednesday that its forces launched two more airstrikes in Somalia as the Trump administration continues its record-shattering bombing campaign in the country, a war that’s ignored by US media despite AFRICOM announcing its strikes.
The command said both strikes were launched on September 25, and that one targeted al-Shabaab near Welmaro, about 25 miles west of Jilib, a city in Somalia’s southern Jubaland state. AFRICOM said the other strike occurred near Ali Farhan, about 55 miles northeast of Jilib.
As usual, AFRICOM offered no other details about the attacks, as it stopped sharing casualty estimates and assessments of potential civilian harm since last year, and there don’t appear to be any statements from US-backed forces or Somali media reports about clashes in the area that day.
Based on Antiwar.com’s tally of AFRICOM statements and announcements, the strike brings the number of US airstrikes in Somalia this year to at least 86.
The number reflects 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 also been conducting a bombing campaign against an ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region and is planning to establish a military base in Bosaso, a port city in Puntland on the Gulf of Aden. The establishment of the base signals there may be more US escalations in Somalia, and it could also be used as a launchpad for attacks against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen.
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 ISIS affiliate in Puntland started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.
