One United States Service member has been killed and two injured during a joint operation with Somali forces outside Mogadishu, as the US steps up its fight against Al-Qaeda-linked extremists.
The soldiers where on an “advise and assist” mission against al-Shabaab when the service member was struck by small arms fire, the US Africa Command said in a statement Friday.
“On May 4, one US service member was killed during an operation against al-Shabaab near Barii, Somalia, approximately 40 miles west of Mogadishu,” the statement said, adding the US forces were “conducting an advise and assist mission alongside members of the Somali National Army.”
A Somali intelligence official told Associated Press that US forces in helicopters raided an al-Shabab hideout near the Somali capital on Thursday night and engaged with fighters.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the helicopters dropped soldiers near Dare Salaam village in an attempt to capture or kill extremists in the area. The official said the fighters mounted a stiff resistance against the soldiers.
The attack comes as US regular troops are returning to Somalia for the first time since 1993 when 18 special forces died fighting militias in Mogadishu, a battle dramatised in the film Black Hawk Down.
Somalia’s new Somali-American president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, last month declared a new offensive against al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia but has claimed responsibility for major attacks elsewhere in East Africa.
In March Donald Trump signed off on a Pentagon plan to step up operations against al-Shabaab, including additional air strikes, as part of an effort to give his commanders more autonomy in fighting wars around the world.
Deploying troops to Somalia is the latest sign of a more interventionist approach from a candidate who used the election campaign to criticise his predecessors for becoming bogged down in foreign wars.
Somalia, riven by war since 1991, offers a huge challenge. A fragile government relies on international backing and the security of a 22,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force.
Although al-Shabaab has lost ground ever since being forced out of Mogadishu in 2011, fighters are still able to launch attacks almost at will.
Several countries, including the UK and Turkey, are helping train Somali security forces.
Although a handful of US advisers and special forces teams were already on the ground, previous administrations have been reluctant to venture further into a country remembered as the scene of one of its worst recent military disasters.
Catastrophe struck when US special forces launched a raid to capture lieutenants of a feared warlord. Eighteen US soldiers were killed.
[telegraph]
