Following reported al-Shabaab attacks on a pair of southern Somalia army
bases, the US carried out an airstrike against a target in Jilib, near
the site of the attacks, and is claiming to have killed 52 people, all described as “al-Shabaab extremists.”
If confirmed, this is the deadliest US strike in Somalia since October.
The US has been escalating attacks against targets inside Somalia since
President Trump took office, and those strikes seem to remain on the
upswing.
Though the initial assumption was
that the strike was connected to the recent al-Shabaab attack in
neighboring Kenya, the Africom statement makes clear this was direct
retaliation for the strikes on the Somali military bases, not for the
Nairobi incident.
Al-Shabaab issued its own statement on those attacks, claiming to have
killed at least 41 Somali soldiers in the course of raiding two bases
near the port city of Kismayo. Somalia has not commented on the
casualties.
US Airstrike Kills at Least 52 in Southern Somalia
Officials say all slain were al-Shabaab militants
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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