According to local authorities in Somalia, an airstrike resulted in a number of casualties, including children, as well as the deaths of three extremists with ties to al-Qaida.
In a statement released on Friday (September 8, 2023), the U.S. military claimed that “unfortunately, civilians were injured and killed” on Wednesday (September 6, 2023) during a military operation by Somali troops in the community of El-Lahelay.
The United States claimed that it evacuated injured people at the request of the Somali government, however American forces had neither carried out airstrikes or been present at the operation’s scene.
The number of people killed and injured was one among the queries the U.S. Africa Command declined to answer. The U.S. has supported Somali forces fighting the al-Shabab organization, which has ties to al-Qaida, for years by conducting airstrikes.
Witnesses’ and local officials’ accounts of what happened on Wednesday vary.
Relative Amal Ali told The Associated Press that an airstrike in El-Garas town, Galmudug state, targeted an al-Shabab vehicle as it passed by the family home. She claimed that a grandmother and five of her grandchildren were killed.
In a quick phone contact, Dahir Ahmed, the father of the kids, confirmed the occurrence but declined to provide further details.
“It was an American airstrike,” Abdifatah Ali Halane, secretary-general of the El-Garas administration, told the AP. “They’ve been providing crucial aerial support throughout our operations against extremists in Galmudug state.”
He said the airstrike killed three people, including two suspected members of al-Shabab, and injured five people, including four children.
Halane said Somali forces quickly came for the wounded, who were evacuated to the capital, Mogadishu, for medical treatment.
Somalia’s deputy information minister, Abdirahman Adala, told journalists that three al-Shabab members were killed in the operation by Somali forces. But he said extremists had placed explosive materials in a nearby home that killed civilians.
Somalia’s government last year launched what the president called “total war” on al-Shabab, which controls parts of rural central and southern Somalia and makes millions of dollars through “taxation” of residents and extortion of businesses.
Ref: AP
