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Foreign Policy: Exclusive: U.S. Operates Drones From Secret Bases in Somalia
Two decades after “Black Hawk Down,” U.S. special operations forces are back in East Africa’s most troubled nation. FP provides a rare window into their shadowy operations.
KISMAYO, Somalia — Some say the Americans are everywhere. Some say they are nowhere. Still others say they are everywhere and nowhere at once. But the shadowy U.S. presence in this strategic port city in war-torn southern Somalia has clear consequences for anyone with a share of power here. That includes Somali regional officials who are quick to praise American counterterrorism efforts, African Union forces who rely on U.S. intelligence as they battle back al-Shabab, and even the al Qaeda-linked militants themselves, who are increasingly hemmed in by a lethal combination of AU-led counterinsurgency, airstrikes, and raids by U.S. special operators.
Based out of a fortress of fading green Hesco barriers at the ramshackle airport in Kismayo, a team of special operators from the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite U.S. military organization famous for killing Osama bin Laden, flies drones and carries out other counterterrorism activities, multiple Somali government and African Union sources have confirmed. Their presence in this volatile city, which until 2012 was controlled by al-Shabab, has not previously been reported. Nor has the United States acknowledged operating drones from Somali soil. (Unmanned armed and surveillance flights are said to originate from Camp Lemonnier in nearby Djibouti or from bases in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia.)
Update: US Operates Top Secret Drone Bases Inside Somalia -- Sputnik
WNU Editor: 20 years after Black Hawk Down this is a confirmation that U.S. special forces have returned to Somalia. No debate .... no discussion .... no Congressional vote .... but for all intents and purposes the U.S. is now directly involved in Somalia's civil war.
Now that the secrets out you know that people will be looking for those bases.
ReplyDeleteAnd we know what kind of people it'll be.
Spec Ops have been in the Horn of Africa since 9/11. There just was not a large footprint with lots of regular troops.
ReplyDeleteThe American people don't know because the Democrats have been sucking up all the oxygen with their good war, bad war narrative.
Iraq was the bad war and Afghanistan was the good war. At least until Iraq was declared over then Afghanistan also was declared a bad war by the Left.
Never mind that it was one war with multiple theatres. Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa, Yemen, North Africa and elsewhere.