The U.S. military command in Africa has said it conducted an airstrike in central Somalia that killed five al-Shabab militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a press statement Thursday, AFRCOM said the “collective self-defense” airstrike occurred July 19 in a remote area near Hareeri Kalle, approximately 15 kilometers south of Galcad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AFRICOM said the strike was in support of Somali National Army forces fighting al-Shabab. The strike came at the request of the federal government of Somalia, the statement added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AFRICOM said it will continue to assess the results of Wednesday’s operation and will provide additional information “as appropriate.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Somali government has been fighting al-Shabab militants since 2006. The group was removed from major cities but continues to control vast areas in the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In August 2022, the Somali army, supported by self-mobilized local fighters, launched a military offensive that seized parts of central Somalia from the militant group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The militants have struck back, raiding military bases and inflicting heavy losses on government forces in the south and central regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Hussein Sheikh-Ali, the national security adviser for Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, told VOA this week the Somali government hopes to get a financial boost in December when a fundraising conference will be held in New York for the Somali army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali said six countries \u2014 the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar \u2014 as well as the European Union will co-sponsor with Somalia an international donor conference for the Somali security sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are expecting something that would take Somalia up to 2027 when Somalia believes we can take over to fund our security forces completely,” Ali said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Somali government is aided by an African Union force and independently operating Ethiopian forces that are also fighting al-Shabab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States, Turkey, Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates are among the nations training the Somali National Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source VOA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. military command in Africa has said it conducted an airstrike in central Somalia that killed five al-Shabab militants. In a press statement Thursday, AFRCOM said the “collective self-defense” airstrike occurred July 19 in a remote area near Hareeri Kalle, approximately 15 kilometers south of Galcad. AFRICOM said the strike was in support of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/drone.jpg?fit=540%2C357","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89N1L-dDl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52411"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52412,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52411\/revisions\/52412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}