A C-130J Super Hercules, assigned to the 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, sits on the taxiway while cargo is unloaded in Somalia, on August 25, 2019.

A C-130J Super Hercules, assigned to the 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, sits on the taxiway while cargo is unloaded in Somalia, on August 25, 2019. U.S. Air Force / Tech. Sgt. Nick Kibbey

The Hidden Damage of Trump’s Secret War in Somalia

Terrorist activity is not discernably declining, even as U.S. military activity and alleged civilian deaths rise.

On December 6, 2017, as people traveled into the village of Illimey – 80 miles outside of the Somalia capital, Mogadishu – to shop, meet, or simply pass through, the sound of a drone crescendoed in the air until a violent explosion occurred, killing five alleged civilians instantaneously. The intended target was a nearby vehicle purportedly associated with the al-Shabaab terrorist group. The resulting community outcry did not move the United States, which maintains that the dead belonged to the group. The villagers returned to their lives, now fearing U.S. action as much as al-Shabaab’s.

The number of U.S. airstrikes, drone strikes, and ground raids in Somalia have risen each year of the Trump administration: from 13 under Obama in 2016, the annual totals rose to 38 in 2017, 47 in 2018, and 55 so far in 2019, by New America’s count. 

Are these strikes reducing the terrorist threat across Somalia? Or are they doing more to hurt civilians and American credibility?

Officials with U.S. Africa Command, which carries out these strikes, asserts that these they have resulted in the targeted killing of hundreds of al-Shabaab militants, and no civilians have been killed in any U.S. airstrikes since April 2018. 

AFRICOM officials have denied reports by the Somali Human Rights Association and Amnesty International that U.S. airstrikes and, more recently, ground raids, have indeed killed several civilians over the past few years. (In 2017, American troops deployed to Somalia for the first since the “Black Hawk Down” incident a quarter-century ago.)

New America’s research indicates that there have been between two and 18 civilian casualties since 2017. It also indicates that U.S. military actions have killed between 560 and 647 al-Shabaab militants in the last 12 months, bringing the estimated total under Trump to between 909 and 1,007. (For context, the Department of Defense estimated in December that al-Shabaab has between 3,000 and 7,000 combatants.)

This has not discernably reduced terrorism in Somalia. To the contrary, the most recent Global Terrorism Index report found that terrorist activity in Somalia increased 93 percent from 2016 to 2017. This moved the country into the index’s top six countries most affected by terrorism, including economic impact and death toll. (And on September 30, al-Shabaab carried out concurrent attacks on a European military convoy and against the U.S. airstrip in Baledogle, where special operators train Somali forces and launch drones. One U.S. service member received treatment for a concussion.)

Related: How Many Civilians Die in Covert US Drone Strikes? It Just Got Harder to Say

Related: ‘Light Footprint’ Operations Keep US Troops in the Dark

Last December, then-National Security Advisor John Bolton rolled out the Trump administration’s Africa strategy, saying, “Our goal is for the nations of the region to take ownership over peace and security in their own neighborhood.” Even as reports emerged in January that said Pentagon leaders planned to reduce the troop presence in Somalia, President Trump gave the military more authority to conduct strikes across the country. He extended the 2010 executive order that says unrest in Somalia poses a serious threat to the United States. But no foreign terrorist organization has carried out a deadly attack inside the United States since 2001. 

Half of the operations that have taken place in 2019 occurred in the southern regions of Somalia, Lower Juba and Lower Shebelle, where al-Shabaab currently holds territory. The United States’ most deadly strike in 2019 occurred in Jilib (also southern Somalia) on January 19, killing between 52 and 73 militants, according to reports from AFRICOM, VOA, and Mareeg, among others. 

“It’s clear from the reporting about tempo of strikes in Somalia that the Trump administration has taken a different approach, striking a broader set of al-Shabaab targets, resulting in a much higher number of reported deaths of militants. What’s not yet clear, at least to me, is whether this approach is contributing to a lessening of the extremism/terrorism problem in East Africa,” says Nicholas Rasmussen, who ran the National Counterterrorism Center earlier in the Trump administration and is now Senior Director for National Security and Counterterrorism at the McCain Institute.

After each airstrike, the United States has consistently stated that there have been no civilian casualties. (One exception came in April, when an AFRICOM press release said that two civilians and four militants had died — in a strike that took place the previous year.) In May 2018, the Defense Department released its “Annual Report on Civilian Casualties in Connection With United States Military Operations.” The report asserted that no activities by the United States in Somalia resulted in any civilian deaths in 2017, and stated that one unspecified event is under investigation.

But in August 2017, the government of Somalia formally recognized errors in a United States-Somalia joint operation after 10 civilians were killed in a raid in Bariire village, which is about 35 miles from Mogadishu. And in early December 2017, the drone strike in the village of Illimey allegedly killed five civilians, according to witnesses and the deputy governor of Somalia’s lower Shabelle region Ali Nur. AFRICOM has released no official strike record for that date. In January 2018 and September 2019, local reporting found other U.S. operations with civilian casualties not publicly released. These discrepancies raise questions about how many strikes are actually occurring, and whether or not militant death counts are possibly absorbing civilian death counts. 

AFRICOM defends its assessments, arguing that its intelligence methods are “not available to non-military organizations.”

Issues of transparency aside, increased air and drone strikes alone will not solve the terrorism problem in Somalia. Then-AFRICOM commander Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said as much at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in February. “At the end of the day these strikes are not going to defeat al-Shabaab, but they are going to provide the opportunity for the federal government and the Somali National Army to grow and assume the security of that country,” Waldhauser said. 

What about non-military action? Supporting the government of Somalia and its National Army are critical to stabilizing the country, but airstrikes are not making Somalia more secure or reducing terrorist activity. The increased precision airstrike approach by the United States feels as if it is setting Somalia up for failure by primarily choosing military intervention instead of assisting Somalia with addressing driving forces of the conflict. If the latter concern was fully addressed, civilians such as those in Illimey could live without the dual fear of terrorism and the resultant airstrikes.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.