American airstrikes targeted leaders of the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Somalia on Saturday and killed senior leaders of the organization without harming civilians, U.S. President Donald Trump said.
“The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is ‘WE WILL FIND YOU AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’ President Trump posted on social media.
According to the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), American fighter jets struck multiple targets in the Golis mountains in coordination with the federal government of Somalia.
“This action further degrades ISIS’s ability to plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians and sends a clear signal that the United States always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the United States and our allies, even as we conduct robust border-protection and many other operations under President Trump’s leadership,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement on Feb 1.
Somalia is one of a number of African countries where Islamic insurgencies have been active in recent years, and the ISIS presence there has fueled internal conflict and threatened the central government as well as civilians for over a decade. Though U.S. forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a raid in Northwest Syria in 2019, offshoots of the terrorist organization continue to operate globally.
Source: Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Saturday’s strikes in Somalia mark the first announced military action undertaken in Africa by the Trump administration. On Thursday, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) struck suspected terror targets in northwest Syria, killing ISIS operative Hurras al-Din.
U.S. influence in Africa has been seen as waning in recent years, as other global powers such as China have expanded theirs largely in pursuit of the continent’s mineral resources. Last year, Chad and Niger both expelled U.S. forces and took over bases previously utilized by the American military.
Though ISIS did not claim direct responsibility for the attack in New Orleans, Louisiana last month, the assailant, Shamsud Din-Jabbar, is believed to have been inspired by the terror organization and carried their flag in the truck with which he killed 14 civilians on Bourbon street and wounded dozens of others.
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