US Africa Command said in a press release on Tuesday that its forces launched another airstrike in Somalia one day earlier as the Trump administration continues its record-shattering bombing campaign in the country.
The command said that the strike targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region, about 46 miles southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bosasso, in a remote mountain region where the US backs local government forces against ISIS fighters based in caves.
As usual, AFRICOM offered no other details about the strike, but Hiraan Online, a Somali news site, reported heavy US strikes at the Miraale Well, an area where ISIS fighters are based. The report said the strikes came after clashes between the Puntland military and the ISIS affiliate in the area.
The Hiraan report didn’t say if there were casualties, and AFRICOM has stopped sharing casualty estimates and assessments on potential civilian harm since last year. “Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security,” AFRICOM said.
The bombing marks at least the 62nd US airstrike in Somalia this year, according to AFRICOM’s numbers, putting the Trump administration well on track to break the record for annual airstrikes in the country that it set last year, when it conducted 124. Besides bombing the ISIS affiliate in Puntland, the US has also been targeting al-Shabaab in southern Somalia in support of the US-backed Mogadishu-based federal government.
President Trump’s massive escalation of the US air war in Somalia came after he loosened the rules of engagement by lifting restrictions on US drone strikes and raids carried out outside of officially declared combat zones. According to New America, an organization that tracks the air war, the US launched more airstrikes in Somalia in 2025 than were conducted during the administrations of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush combined.
Despite the massive escalation, the bombing campaign continues to be ignored by US media, and the administration has never elaborated on what its long-term strategy is for Somalia.
The US has been involved in Somalia for decades and has been fighting al-Shabaab since the George W. Bush administration backed an Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a Muslim coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu after taking the city from CIA-backed warlords.
Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, and its first recorded attack was a suicide bombing in 2007 that targeted Ethiopian troops occupying Mogadishu. It wasn’t until 2012 that the group pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. The ISIS affiliate in Puntland started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.
Source: Antiwar.com
