What on Earth is the U.S. doing by bombing Somalia?

By Dilip -
The Trump administration has quietly ramped up a vicious bombing—and covert raiding—campaign in Somalia amid a global coronavirus pandemic. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has provided any explanation for the deadly escalation of a war that Congress hasn’t declared and the media rarely reports. At stake are many thousands of lives.

The public statistics show a considerable increase in airstrikes from Obama’s presidency. From 2009 to 2016, the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced 36 airstrikes in Somalia. Under Trump, it conducted at least 63 bombing raids just last year, with another 39 such attacks in the first four months of 2020. 

The ostensible U.S. target has usually been the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab, but often the real—or at least consequent—victims are long-embattled Somali civilians. As for the most direct victims, it’s become clear that notoriously image-conscious AFRICOM public affairs officers have long undercounted and underreported the number of civilians killed in their expanding aerial bombardments...
https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/what-on-earth-is-the-u-s-doing-by-bombing-somalia/



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