President Donald Trump took office last month touting his commitment to ending wars. “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” he announced in his recent inaugural address. For years, in fact, Trump has touted his antiwar credentials and boasted about ending “endless wars.”
On Saturday, Trump ramped up America’s longest-running war, carrying out a strike in Somalia that killed an unspecified number of people. “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies,” Trump posted on social media. “The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.”
Trump asserted that the airstrike killed a “Senior ISIS Attack Planner” that the Biden administration failed to strike, despite a yearslong military targeting effort. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’” Trump announced.
U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, noted that the strike was conducted “in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia” but a Somali government official, speaking to The Intercept on background because he was not authorized to talk with the press, said very little advance notice was given.
AFRICOM did not confirm Trump’s assertions that the attack involved a cave complex, that the “Senior ISIS Attack Planner” had been targeted for years, or that there was any indication that those struck were planning to harm Americans. “We do not have any additional information to provide,” AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan told The Intercept.
The Trump administration also refused to provide any additional clarification or comment. “We have nothing for you beyond POTUS’ truth & the DOD press release,” a White House spokesperson told The Intercept by email.
AFRICOM echoed Trump, stating that “no civilians were harmed” in the Saturday strike.
A 2023 investigation by The Intercept determined that an April 2018 drone attack in Somalia killed at least three, and possibly five, civilians, including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse. At the time, AFRICOM announced it had killed “five terrorists” and that “no civilians were killed in this airstrike.”
The Intercept’s investigation revealed that the strike was conducted under loosened rules of engagement sought by the Pentagon and approved by the Trump White House, and that no one was ever held accountable for the civilian deaths. For more than six years, Luul and Mariam’s family has tried to contact the U.S. government, including through an online civilian casualty reporting portal run by AFRICOM, but did not receive a response.
The United States has been conducting attacks in Somalia since at least 2007, with airstrikes skyrocketing during Trump’s first term. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 43 declared airstrikes in Somalia. Under Trump, AFRICOM conducted more than 200 air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State group. The Biden administration conducted 39 declared strikes over four years.
ISIS–Somalia is a tiny organization that operates primarily in the Golis Mountains of the Bari region in Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland state. There is no evidence the group has the capability to target the United States.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted out video footage of Saturday’s airstrike. The footage, from an aircraft high above the target area, shows crosshairs fixed on what appears to be a hilly patch of land. Within seconds, the blinding flash of a bomb is followed by a billowing cloud.
Despite his propensity for airstrikes there, Trump has previously expressed deep skepticism about the U.S. forever war in Somalia. At the end of his first term in office, Trump ordered a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Horn-of-Africa nation. The Pentagon slow-rolled Trump and, despite a showy operation, U.S. forces never fully left. Even after the withdrawal, an AFRICOM spokesperson, Col. Chris Karns, admitted that troops, albeit a “very limited” number, remained.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud thanked the United States for the Saturday airstrike. “I extend my deepest gratitude for the unwavering support of the United States in our shared fight against terrorism,” Mohamud’s office said in a statement, specifically praising Trump. “Your bold decisive leadership, Mr. President, in counterterrorism efforts is highly valued and welcomed in Somalia.”
The presidential praise for Trump comes in the wake of Somalia signing a one-year $600,000 agreement with the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm BGR Group amid fears that the Trump administration might scale back military cooperation with that nation. In paperwork filed with the Department of Justice, BGR says that it will “provide government affairs services by engaging and facilitating communications with the relevant officials and decision-makers in the U.S.”
