The US military has conducted a series of airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) operatives in Somalia, killing “many”, President Trump said.
The coordinated campaign, which is the first of the new president’s administration, was targeted at a senior IS attack planner and other militants.
It was carried out in the Golis Mountains region of northern Somalia, where the terrorist group IS-Somalia, which broke off from the larger al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabaab group in 2015, is based.
Mr Trump said in a post on Truth Social: “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies.”
“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.”
“Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years,” the president added, “but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!
The president did not name the individuals who had been targeted in the strikes. He ended his social media statement by issuing a “message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans”, that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
The US has carried out a staggered campaign of air strikes in Somalia for years under both Democratic and Republican administrations. A special forces operation ordered by Joe Biden in 2023 killed a senior ISIS commander and 10 other militants in a similarly remote part of the country’s northern region and a US airstrike last May also killed three IS members.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia wrote on X that he was deeply grateful for “the unwavering support of the United States in our shared fight against terrorism”.
“Your bold and decisive leadership, Mr President, in counterterrorism efforts is highly valued and welcomed in Somalia,” he added.
The North African country’s autonomous Puntland government, which was formed in 1998 and also launched a campaign against IS-Somalia following the terror group’s attack on a military base that caused 22 deaths in December.
US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said the strikes had resulted in the deaths of “multiple operatives” with an “initial assessment” finding that no civilians had been harmed.
“This action further degrades ISIS’s ability to plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening US citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians,” he said.
Mr Hegseth added that the airstrikes signalled that the US “always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the US and our allies, even as we conduct robust border-protection and many other operations under President Trump’s leadership”.
While ISIS rose to global prominence for its presence in parts of the Middle East including Iraq and Syria, its operations are now largely contained to parts of Africa, capitalising on weak governance and disorder across the continent.
It comes amid speculation that Mr Trump will withdraw thousands of US troops from Europe in a bid to dial back the country’s on-the-ground presence in foreign conflicts. During his first administration, he withdrew troops from Somalia and also took an airstrike-first approach to military action during his first term.