U.S. Africa Command Conducts Its 100th Airstrike of 2025 in Somalia
As highlighted by John Vandiver in yesterday’s Stars And Stripes article, U.S. Africa Command has conducted its 100th airstrike of 2025 in Somalia.
A November 22nd strike on Islamic State militants near the Golis Mountains makes this year’s tally above all previous annual totals and may reach roughly twice the 63 recorded in 2019. There have been at least 28 Somalia strikes since early September, compared with 21 against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in the same period.
The expanded air campaign targets both Al-Shabaab and ISIS Somalia; AFRICOM estimates that the ISIS faction has grown from about 300 fighters in 2019 to around 1,500 in May 2025, roughly 60 percent of them foreign fighters, and notes that this intensification coincides with a January directive by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that delegated broader strike authorities to theater commanders.
For additional background, see last week’s SWJ article, “The Puntland Model,” to trace how US airpower, partner forces, and Somalia’s contested clan politics converge in a theater central to ongoing counterterrorism operations.
