DAVE DeCAMP, [email protected], @DecampDave
DeCamp is news editor of Antiwar.com and host of “Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp” — a daily summary of developments.
He just wrote the piece “U.S. Bombs Somalia for 100th Time This Year” which highlights: “U.S. Africa Command announced on Sunday that its forces have launched two more airstrikes in Somalia, bringing the total number of U.S. bombings in the country this year to at least 100, an unprecedented number.
“AFRICOM said the strikes targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region. … AFRICOM said that the airstrikes were launched on November 21 and November 22 about 37 miles southeast of the Gulf of Aden port city of Bosaso, where U.S.-backed forces have been fighting against an ISIS affiliate in the Caal-Miskaad Mountains.
“The Puntland government has come under criticism recently over reports that the UAE has been shipping weapons to Sudan to arm the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been accused of committing genocide and recently committed massacres against civilians after it took the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region. According to a report from Middle East Eye, the U.S. has also been using the airbase in Bosaso to support its military operations in Somalia.
“The U.S. has been fighting against al-Shabaab since the group first emerged in 2007, a year after the U.S. backed an Ethiopian invasion that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a Muslim coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu.
“Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, and its first recorded attack was a suicide bombing that targeted Ethiopian troops occupying Mogadishu. The ISIS affiliate in Somalia that’s now based in Puntland started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.”