A deeper look at Africom’s recent airstrikes under the Trump administration

U.S. Africa Command targeted members of the al Shabaab jihadist military and political group with airstrikes near Somalia’s capital city Mogadishu on March 15, following an urgent request from the nation’s federal government, according to American officials.

The operation was the latest in a recent surge of attacks carried out by Africom since the Trump administration took office earlier this year.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell briefly mentioned the recent op during the Defense Department’s first on-camera press briefing under the new administration on Monday. Pointing to the initial assessment, he said that enemy combatants were killed and that no civilians were injured or fatally harmed.

On Wednesday, a source familiar with those airstrikes shared new information with DefenseScoop.

“The vast majority of [Africom’s] strikes are out in the open. This strike did not include structures,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

Somalia is located on the Horn of Africa. The nation’s extensive coastline borders the Gulf of Aden to the north and the Indian Ocean to the east. 

The militant organization al Shabaab, an al-Qaeda ally, frequently launches terrorist attacks against Somali civilians and officials. In recent years, the group has increasingly threatened the Somali government’s hold on its territory.

And tensions continue to escalate this week. On Tuesday, members of the group targeted the Somalian president’s motorcade with a bomb attack in Mogadishu.

Early into his new administration, President Donald Trump made a policy shift that eased restrictions on U.S. commanders in a way that enables them to authorize strikes and certain special operation raids beyond conventional battlefields — and essentially expanded the pool of people who can be targeted.

The new authorities have empowered commanders to take faster action against terrorist threats, the official who spoke to DefenseScoop said.

So-called “self-defense airstrikes” like the one on March 15 are conducted when an Africom partner or its own forces are under attack and request assistance, they noted.

They declined to identify or talk about any of the technical systems or unmanned aerial vehicles deployed in the March 15 operation. However, they noted that “99% of the time these are conducted with UAV.”

“Most engagements last under an hour, but that includes monitoring, assessing and with very few shots actually taken,” the official said. 

They confirmed that battle damage assessments are ongoing. Generally, those can go on for days, weeks or months depending on the location of the operations, they added.

The official also noted that the airstrike operations that Africom has conducted so far in 2025 potentially mark one of the largest — if not the most — numbers of strikes the command has done in a short period of time, “compared to the last four years” under the Biden administration.

Information published on Africom’s official website indicates an uptick.

For instance, between Feb. 1 and March 15, the command reported conducting at least eight airstrikes in its area of responsibility. Africom reported completing a total of 10 airstrikes for the entire year of 2024, six of which were conducted in the first part of that year through March 15, 2024.

“U.S. forces will continue to partner with Somali armed forces to take the fight to these terrorists and degrade their ability to plan and conduct attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces and civilians abroad,” Parnell told reporters Monday.