Tag: africa

AFRICOM Announces Seven More Airstrikes in Somalia as Trump Continues Record-Shattering Bombing Campaign

US Africa Command has announced in recent days that its forces have launched at least seven more airstrikes in Somalia as the Trump administration continues its record-breaking bombing campaign in the country, which receives virtually no media coverage in the United States.

AFRICOM said in a press release that it launched airstrikes in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region on November 26, November 27, and November 28, which it said targeted the ISIS affiliate in a remote mountain region about 37 miles to the southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bossaso.

The command said in another press release that it launched more airstrikes against ISIS in the same area of Puntland on December 1, December 2, and December 3. A separate airstrike that was launched on December 3 targeted al-Shabaab near the village of Kobon in the southern Jubaland region, according to a third AFRICOM press release.

The six days of US airstrikes in Puntland came after the commander of AFRICOM, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, visited the region and called for the war against the ISIS fighters hiding out in caves to be “intensified.” The US has been backing local Puntland forces since the region is not under the control of the Mogadishu-based Federal Government.

The command didn’t specify how many airstrikes it launched, but counting each day as one bombing brings the total number of US airstrikes in Somalia this year to 109, an unprecedented number. President Trump has shattered the previous record for annual US airstrikes in Somalia, which he set at 63 during his first term in 2019.

According to numbers from New America, which tracks the US air war in Somalia, President Biden launched a total of 51 airstrikes in Somalia throughout his entire four years in office, and President Obama launched 48 over eight years. President Trump launched a total of 219 during his first term.

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Somalia’s Average IQ Score Meets the U.S. Standard for Intellectual Disability

Minnesota’s Somali community has been treated for years as a political talking point rather than a population that deserves honest evaluation. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz insists the community poses no financial or public-safety burden. Democrats frame all criticism as racism. 

But the numbers tell a different story—one that Minnesotans have been asked to ignore even as the state confronted one of the largest welfare-fraud schemes in U.S. history.

Federal prosecutors uncovered a $250–$300 million network of falsified child-nutrition and Medicaid claims, much of it operating through organizations rooted in Somali enclaves. 

The total fraud is now estimated by some to exceed $1 billion. The scandal reflects deeper structural problems tied to human-capital realities that Democrats refuse to acknowledge.

Minnesota has a population of about 5.7 million, including approximately 107,000 Somali-born or Somali-American residents—roughly 1.5% of the state. 

Yet according to state data, about 58% of Somali Minnesotans live in poverty, or roughly 62,000 people, compared with 530,000 Minnesotans overall. That means the Somali community represents nearly 12% of the state’s total poverty population despite making up less than 2% of its residents.

This imbalance translates into real fiscal consequences. 

Minnesota spends billions annually on welfare-related programs. Using per-capita calculations, the Somali poverty footprint represents an estimated $2.8 billion in yearly public-assistance obligations. 

That burden falls on taxpayers—many of whom were never told the scale of the dependency they were financing.

State leaders also insist Somali Minnesotans do not disproportionately contribute to crime. Governor Walz has repeatedly made that claim without supplying data to support it.

The federal record tells a different story. 

Across the United States, Black migrants make up 5.4% of immigrants, yet account for 20.3% of immigrants facing removal because of criminal convictions. That category consists mostly of East Africans, including Somali nationals.

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ICE “Strike Teams” Deployed To Minneapolis After Bombshell Somali Welfare-Fraud Report Linked To Overseas Terror

Investigative journalist Christopher Rufo, whose City Journal expose revealed how Minnesota’s Somali community stole billions in taxpayer funds, with money ultimately flowing to a foreign terrorist network, notes that just weeks after his bombshell report, ICE has now mobilized in Minneapolis.

“How it started   …   How it’s going,” Rufo wrote on X on Tuesday evening. 

Rufo cited a report from the New York Times that said the Trump administration launched a massive ICE enforcement operation in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area, set to target hundreds of illegal alien Somalis. 

According to an official with knowledge of the deportation operation and documents obtained by the NYT, about 100 federal agents have been deployed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul region as part of a new “strike team” to deport Somali illegal aliens who are a net drain on public resources.

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Pentagon Seeks To Explain A Little-Known, Forgotten ‘Forever War’

The US Department of War insisted on Tuesday that it’s not waging a “forever war” in Somalia despite the fact that the Trump administration has shattered the record for annual airstrikes in the country.

Liam Cosgrove, a reporter for ZeroHedge, noted during a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday that the US has launched 101 airstrikes (now 102) in Somalia and that US troops reportedly conducted a recent ground raid, and asked why the US military is still in the country.

“I can assure you this is an America First Department of War and president, so we aren’t conducting forever wars in Somalia, we aren’t seeking regime change, and we’re not nation building,” Pentagon spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said in reply.

The Trump administration has dramatically escalated the US war in Somalia, launching more than 10 times the number of airstrikes that the US conducted in 2024, and more than the combined total of airstrikes launched during the 12 years that Presidents Obama and Biden were in office. Despite the unprecedented scale of US strikes, Kingsley described the campaign as “narrowly scoped.”

She told Cosgrove, “I will say that this Department’s narrowly scoped, intelligence-driven, counterintelligence operations in places like Somalia, alongside our partners, allow us to protect the American homeland from terrorist threats and to protect our interests.”

US airstrikes this year have targeted a small ISIS affiliate based in caves in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region and al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia.

The US has been fighting al-Shabaab since it backed an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, which ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups that briefly held power in Mogadishu after taking the capital from CIA-backed warlords.

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US War Department Claims It’s Not Waging a ‘Forever War’ in Somalia Despite Record Airstrikes

The US Department of War insisted on Tuesday that it’s not waging a “forever war” in Somalia despite the fact that the Trump administration has shattered the record for annual airstrikes in the country.

Liam Cosgrove, a reporter for ZeroHedge, noted during a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday that the US has launched 101 airstrikes (now 102) in Somalia and that US troops reportedly conducted a recent ground raid, and asked why the US military is still in the country.

“I can assure you this is an America First Department of War and president, so we aren’t conducting forever wars in Somalia, we aren’t seeking regime change, and we’re not nation building,” Pentagon spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said in reply.

The Trump administration has dramatically escalated the US war in Somalia, launching more than 10 times the number of airstrikes that the US conducted in 2024, and more than the combined total of airstrikes launched during the 12 years that Presidents Obama and Biden were in office. Despite the unprecedented scale of US strikes, Kingsley described the campaign as “narrowly scoped.”

She told Cosgrove, “I will say that this Department’s narrowly scoped, intelligence-driven, counterintelligence operations in places like Somalia, alongside our partners, allow us to protect the American homeland from terrorist threats and to protect our interests.”

US airstrikes this year have targeted a small ISIS affiliate based in caves in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region and al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia. The US has been fighting al-Shabaab since it backed an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, which ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups that briefly held power in Mogadishu after taking the capital from CIA-backed warlords.

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Treasury to probe whether Somali terror group al Shabaab receiving Minnesota welfare money: Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an investigation into Somali terror group al Shabaab allegedly receiving Minnesota welfare money,

“At my direction, @USTreasury is investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab,” Bessent posted on X on Monday.

“Thanks to the leadership of @POTUS @realDonaldTrump, we are acting fast to ensure Americans’ taxes are not funding acts of global terror. We will share our findings as our investigation continues.”

Bessent reposted a City Journal article from last month that alleged millions of dollars from Minnesota state welfare programs had “ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab,” citing law enforcement sources, CBS News reported.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) office directed the news outlet to remarks last week in which the governor said he welcomes an investigation into where defrauded welfare money went and would work with investigators.

In 2019, a report by Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor said it was “unable to substantiate” allegations that Child Care Assistance Program funding is going to terrorist groups, but it didn’t rule it out, saying it’s “possible” that state funds may have been sent overseas and eventually found its way to terrorists.

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NY Times Admits Somalis Are ‘Raised in a Culture of Stealing’ Following Massive Welfare Fraud in Minnesota

Even the far-left New York Times has admitted that Somalians are raised in a culture of widespread theft and graft in their country as the news of massive welfare fraud among the Somali community in Democrat Gov. Tim Walz’s Minnesota grows.

The paper’s opening line for its Nov. 29 article gets straight to the point, reading, “The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness.”

There have been an astounding series of cases of hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud in state welfare, housing, healthcare, food, COVID relief and other programs, much of it centered on members of the Somali community.

The fraud has been so endemic in Minnesota that even the usually far-left Times is joining Breitbart News and calling it out. Indeed, the paper even noted that early on many liberals waved off the fraud as a “one-off abuse,” but as each new case rolled out from federal prosecutors the sense of alarm has grown and the blame is undeniable.

“Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided,” the Times reported.

The paper does not spare exposure of the Somali community.

Macalester College professor Ahmed Samatar, a Somali native, said that the fraud among Minnesota’s Somali migrants should not be surprising. The Times added that “Somali refugees who came to the United States after their country’s civil war were raised in a culture in which stealing from the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread.”

The fraud has been so deep that it has undermined all of the state’s welfare programs.

“No one will support these programs if they continue to be riddled with fraud,” federal prosecutor Joseph H. Thompson told the media. “We’re losing our way of life in Minnesota in a very real way.”

One of the first such cases centered around an organization called “Feeding Our Future,” run by a group of Minneapolis-area Somali migrants. Prosecutors say that the organizers bilked $250 million from the state in child food assistance funding.

In a different case, tens of millions were stolen from Minnesota’s autism treatment program, again by Somali migrants. There is also the case of more than $550 million stolen from the state’s coronavirus pandemic relief program.

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ICYMI: MN AG Keith Ellison CAUGHT ON TAPE Promising Favors to Somali Immigrant Fraudsters — Including Now-Convicted Defendants — In Exchange for Campaign Cash

A 54-minute secret recording from a December 11, 2021, closed-door meeting inside Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s official state office is resurfacing amid explosive revelations that 70 Somali community members in Minnesota participated in stealing $250 million in federal COVID child-feeding funds.

On the tape released by American Experiment earlier this year, Ellison sympathizes with, encourages, and ultimately promises assistance to a group of Somali-American business leaders, many of whom would later be charged or convicted in the largest COVID relief fraud scheme in U.S. history.

The fraudulent operation, centered around the notorious nonprofit Feeding Our Future, stole an estimated $250 million in federal child nutrition funds, money intended to feed poor children but instead used to purchase luxury homes, foreign real estate, jewelry, and lavish lifestyles.

The audio reveals Ellison mocking state agency oversight, vowing to “fight” on behalf of the very operators who investigators say were deeply involved in a web of wire fraud, money laundering, and fake meal claims across Minnesota.

Soon after (on December 20, 2021), Keith Ellison’s campaign and that of his son Jeremiah Ellison received campaign donations from individuals linked to Feeding Our Future.

Among those donors was Gandi Yusuf Mohamed, a person publicly identified as tied to laundering over $1.1 M in program funds.

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The Somali fraud ring that turned money for hungry children into luxury empires… and why Tim Walz and the Democrats looked the other way for an unfathomable reason

Minnesota once prided itself on its Scandinavian-style safety net – high taxes, generous benefits and a shared belief that no child should ever go hungry.

But that image lies in ruins after a billion-dollar fraud spree that siphoned taxpayer money away from the needy and poured it straight into luxury mansions, high-end cars, overseas real estate and designer lifestyles.

What authorities first hoped was a one-off pandemic scam has now been exposed as something far bigger – and far uglier.

Federal prosecutors say that over the past five years, scores of scammers – many operating inside Minnesota’s Somali diaspora – stole more than $1 billion intended for feeding children, helping homeless families and providing autism therapy.

Instead, the money bankrolled G-Wagons, Teslas, Porsches, lakefront homes, Dubai shopping sprees and beachside resorts abroad.

Minnesotans are livid – and scared. Because this wasn’t a small-time hustle – it was a full-scale hijacking of the state’s famously trusting, famously generous social-services machine.

For decades, Minnesota welcomed immigrants, and poured taxes into the public good. The state drew tens of thousands of Somali refugees fleeing civil war. Most built families, careers and political influence.

But investigators say a small number saw something else: an open-tap of easy money. 

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MINNESOTA SCANDAL EXPLODES: Over 480 DHS Employees Accuse Gov. Tim Walz of Orchestrating Massive Cover-Up — Retaliated Against Whistleblowers to Shield Somali Illegal Fraud Ring That Stole Over $1 Billion

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is under fire after employees from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) issued a bombshell statement accusing the far-left governor of orchestrating a sweeping cover-up to shield a sprawling Somali immigrant fraud ring that stole more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds and punishing whistleblowers who tried to stop it.

According to DHS insiders, Walz not only ignored early warnings but actively retaliated against agency employees who sounded the alarm.

They now accuse his administration of using political intimidation, monitoring, threats, and agency manipulation to suppress evidence and silence witnesses.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, 70 members of the Somali community in Minnesota were involved in stealing $250 million in COVID funds that were intended to feed children.

Millions of dollars were stolen from American taxpayers and sent overseas to Somalia, and 80% of the money has not been recovered.

Seven defendants were tried in connection with the scheme on charges related to stealing more than $40 million in taxpayer funds, and five were found guilty. However, the FBI is still investigating an attempt by a Somali woman to bribe one of the jurors with $120,000 in cash.

However, the fraud extends deeper, with multiple schemes of this nature occurring over the last five years.

Per the New York Times, “Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating.”

During an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker, Walz responded by touting Minnesota’s “generosity” and claiming the state attracts opportunists because it is “prosperous and well-run.”

Rather than taking accountability, he dismissed concerns about foreign-led theft as lazy demonization.

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