Five al-Shabaab members have died in an airstrike in Somalia, according to the United States Africa Command. The U.S. strike targeted al-Shabaab leaders near Saaxa Weyne, AFRICOM said. No civilians were injured or killed during the operation. “This strike targeted known al-Shabaab leaders who facilitated finance, weapons, fighters, and explosives….
There’s a new online database from Airwars, a not-for-profit project based at the University of London that tracks international military actions and assesses harm to civilian populations in Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Syria. The organization is now tracking incidents in Somalia, with an emphasis on how United States drone strikes…
A Somali broadcast journalist was gunned down Sunday night in the town of Afgoye, some 30 kilometers south of Mogadishu, according to the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS). Abdiwali Ali Hassan was returning home shortly after 6 p.m. when unidentified gunmen shot him more than five times in the head and…
The United States Department of Defense has identified the soldier killed Sunday during an al-Shabaab attack on an airfield at Manda Bay in Kenya as Spc. Henry J. Mayfield Jr., a 23-year-old from metro Chicago, Illinois. The U.S. added that the death of Mayfield remains under investigation. He was one…
Three airstrikes targeted al-Shabaab extremists in Somalia on Sunday, one day after a deadly car bombing in Mogadishu claimed scores of lives and left dozens of people injured. The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) said it conducted the airstrikes near Qunyo Barrow and Caliyoow Barrow in the Lower Shabelle region…
In Somalia, the United States says it conducted another air strike near Jilib on Tuesday and successfully targeted one al-Shabaab terrorist who, the U.S. Africa Command said, “had direct ties to the al-Qaeda terror organization.” The strike “is an example of the successful incursions our Somali partners are making into…
The United States says none of its personnel, nor those of its partners in Somalia, were injured on Monday when a car bomb attack happened at the Baledogle Military Airfield – but the attack was cause for a U.S. response. “This attack, though ineffective, demonstrates the direct threat al-Shabaab poses…
Two years after Qatar was accused of sponsoring terrorism abroad – and isolated by many Gulf states and their African counterparts – comes the news that Qatar may well be coordinating attacks in Somalia. The New York Times reported Monday that it has possession of an audio recording made by…
Several nations and entities on the African continent have been noted with concern in the new annual report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which evaluates the world’s worst violators of religious freedom and advises President Donald Trump and other key officials on policy toward those…
The death toll has risen to at least 30, as Somalia once again grappled with a massive terrorist attack in Mogadishu that became a daylong siege near the Maka Al Mukarama Hotel and Hilaac UK restaurant. The attack began about 9 p.m. Thursday when a car loaded with explosives crashed…
The United States says 52 al-Shabaab militants were killed in an airstrike on Saturday that targeted them near the town of Jilib in Somalia’s Middle Juba region. The airstrike came in response to an al-Shabaab attack against Somali National Army Forces, according to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The AFP…
President Uhuru Kenyatta has confirmed that 14 people died in Tuesday’s attack at the Dusit Hotel in Nairobi, with hundreds of others injured and evacuated. “We are grieving as a country this morning; my heart, and that of every Kenyan, goes out to the innocent men and women violated by…
The death toll in Saturday’s bombing attacks in downtown Mogadishu, which targeted the complex where the country’s ministries of interior and security are housed, has risen to 13. More than 21 people were injured, many of them seriously, according to local news outlets who reported the initial car bomb blast…
Somalia’s President Mohamed Farmaajo and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said Saturday they want the United Nations Security Council to reconsider the African Union troop drawdown and transition to Somali security forces authorized under last year’s Resolution 2372. Their position was decided at a summit of the Troop…
The death toll in Somalia has now reached more than 300 people following the worst bomb attack to ever happen in the Horn of Africa nation. The massive truck bomb that exploded Sunday at the KM5 junction in Soobe, one of the busiest areas of Mogadishu, also left hundreds of…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times