The US military has conducted airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) operatives in Somalia, the first attacks in the country during Donald Trump’s second term as president.
The strikes were carried out against IS-Somalia in the Golis Mountains, in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern Puntland region. In 2015, IS-Somalia splintered from al-Shabaab, a much larger and more widely known jihadist organisation affiliated with al-Qaida, which controls parts of southern Somalia.
Trump said on Saturday that he ordered strikes on a senior IS attack planner and others from the organisation.
The president wrote in a post on Truth Social: “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies.
“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.
“Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!
“The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’”