Tag: somalia

US Launches Airstrike in Somalia, Claims 10 al-Shabaab Fighters Killed

US Africa Command said on Tuesday that its forces launched an airstrike in southern Somalia on December 31, which it claimed killed 10 al-Shabaab militants.

The command said the strike was launched on a town about 35 kilometers southwest of the southern port city of Kismaayo. AFRICOM claimed that its “initial post-strike assessment” found no civilians were harmed, though the Pentagon is notorious for hiding civilian casualties in Somalia.

AFRICOM framed the attack as a “collective self-defense airstrike” since it was launched in support of the Mogadishu-based government’s forces fighting on the ground.

“In addition to the airstrike, US forces provided support to Somali forces by evacuating Soldiers that were attacked while fighting the terrorist group,” AFRICOM said.

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The Possible Reasons Donald Trump’s Administration Is Recognizing Somaliland

In a move straight out of left field, the incoming Trump administration is slated to recognize Somaliland as an independent state, according to a report by Semafor.

Somaliland is a former British colony bordering Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia that declared independence from Somalia in 1991 without receiving international recognition. Under international law, Somaliland is currently deemed an autonomous district of Somalia.

If media reports turn out to be true, why is the Trump administration moving to recognize Somaliland’s independence? It boils down to advancing Israeli interests.

Due to its proximity to the Arabian Peninsula, an independent Somaliland would give Israel and the United States a forward base of operations to counter plucky Houthi militants in the Red Sea.

After Israel responded to Hamas’ attack on Oct, 7, 2023 with a vicious military assault on Gaza, the Yemen-based Houthis joined the conflict by launching drones and missiles against Israeli and Western vessels traversing the Red Sea. The world faced the Houthis’ wrath in December 2023 when they announced their blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints, where a substantial portion of global maritime cargo passes through.

Somaliland’s strategic location close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait makes it an important choke point on the grand chessboard, thus making it a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate the Israeli-American axis for the use to exploit.

Houthi attacks have bottled up the Red Sea, leading to major disruptions in international trade at a time when the world is still adjusting to supply-chain disruptions brought about during the COVID-19 era.

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Somali pirates return, adding to global shipping crisis

As a speed boat carrying more than a dozen Somali pirates bore down on their position in the western Indian Ocean, the crew of a Bangladeshi-owned bulk carrier sent out a distress signal and called an emergency hotline.

No one reached them in time. The pirates clambered aboard the Abdullah, firing warning shots and taking the captain and second officer hostage, Chief Officer Atiq Ullah Khan said in an audio message to the ship’s owners.

“By the grace of Allah no one has been harmed so far,” Khan said in the message, recorded before the pirates took the crew’s phones. The company shared the recording with Reuters.

A week later, the Abdullah is anchored off the coast of Somalia, the latest victim of a resurgence of piracy that international navies thought they had brought under control.

The raids are piling risks and costs onto shipping companies also contending with repeated drone and missile strikes by Yemen’s Houthi militia in the Red Sea and other nearby waters.

More than 20 attempted hijackings since November have driven up prices for armed security guards and insurance coverage and raised the spectre of possible ransom payments, according to five industry representatives.

Two Somali gang members told Reuters they were taking advantage of the distraction provided by Houthi strikes several hundred nautical miles to the north to get back into piracy after lying dormant for nearly a decade.

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WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THE U.S. WAR IN SOMALIA WOULD FAIL? THE PENTAGON.

THE PENTAGON HAS known of fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa for nearly 20 years but has nonetheless forged ahead, failing to address glaring problems, according to a 2007 study obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

“There is no useful, shared conception of the conflict,” says the Pentagon study, which was obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and has not previously been made public. “The instruments of national power are not balanced, which results in excessive reliance on the military instrument. There is imbalance within the military instrument as well.”

The 50-page analysis, conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a private think tank that works solely for the U.S. government, is based on anonymized interviews with key U.S. government officials from across various departments and agencies. It found America’s nascent war in the Horn of Africa was plagued by a failure to define the parameters of the conflict or its aims; an overemphasis on military measures without a clear definition of the optimal military strategy; and barriers to coordination between the military and other government agencies like the State Department and local allies like the Somali government.

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