Two weeks after President Donald Trump gave military officials wider authority for conducting airstrikes in Somalia, the United States military said that dozens of troops had arrived in the country, a sign of increased U.S. involvement there.
The arrival of the roughly 40 regular troops in the capital of Mogadishu occurred on April 2, and marks, as the BBC writes, “the first time regular U.S. troops have been deployed in Somalia since 1994,” months after a notorious battle that left thousands of Somalis dead.
The development comes amid increasing concerns regarding United States’ “unchecked use of military force”—and amid a new warning from the United Nations that the country is on the brink of famine.
The Associated Press writes:
Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, however, has argued that al-Shabab emerged as blow-back for U.S. policy there.
The U.S. military involvement in the country is far from new. The New York Times wrote in October:
Author Nick Turse also wrote in December that
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that since 2004, at least 300 people have been killed in Somalia as a result of at least 42 confirmed U.S. strikes.
