Somalia ‘requested’ US air strike killing 100

Somalia’s government announced yesterday that it called on the US to execute an air strike killing “more than 100” Somalis.

“Those militants were preparing explosives and attacks. Operations against Al-Shabaab have been stepped up,” Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said.

“We have asked the US to help us from the air to make our readied ground offensive more successful.”

The United States Africa Command confirmed that it had targeted a military camp used by Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab, 200 kilometres northwest of the capital Mogadishu.

“It is just…propaganda,” Al-Shabaab’s spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said, denying AFRICOM’s claim that 100 fighters were killed.

Amid the language of war to ramp up the fight against Al-Shabaab, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) announced this month that it will be withdrawing some 1,000 troops by the end of the year. It is unclear at this time why AMISOM has decided to rescind its footprint in Somalia.

Read: US air strike kills ‘more than 100’ in Somalia

Some 500 US troops are currently stationed in Somalia, including soldiers to fight alongside Somalia’s forces. The British government has deployed a special regiment of 85 military personnel to train and work with AMISOM. It is unclear whether British troops are assisting in providing locational intelligence to the US for air strikes.

The last joint US and Somali counter-terrorism raid back in August killed 10 innocent civilians, as they ran to take cover behind banana trees.

The US has killed some 510 Somalis and injured 54 since 2007, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.