(Previous Incident Code: SOM068)

AFRICOM reported on the same day it had “conducted an airstrike in Somalia against al-Shabaab on Thur., Nov. 9 at approximately 3 p.m. local Somalia time”.

It added that the “operation occurred in the Bay Region of Somalia, about 100 miles west of the capital, Mogadishu”. AFRICOM made no mention of civilian harm. However, it stated that the strike had killed “several militants”.

This and four additional strikes over the following three days killed “more than 40 terrorists,” 35 of them al Shabaab and five with ISIS, a Pentagon spokesperson later told reporters on November 13th. He did not say how many people were killed in which of the five strikes, “for operational reasons,” an AFRICOM spokesperson told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on November 15th.

Associated Press reported the following for the November 9th attack: “A U.S. drone strike killed ‘several militants’ with al-Shabab in Somalia, the military said, as the Trump administration increasingly targets what has become the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa. The strike was carried out Thursday afternoon in the Bay Region, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the capital, Mogadishu, according to a statement by the U.S. Africa Command. A spokeswoman told The Associated Press that no civilians were anywhere near the strike.”

In a subsequent FOIA response obtained by journalist Joshua Eaton in May 2019, AFRICOM confirmed it had struck what it says were al Shabaab fighters on this date, in the vicinity of Buulo Fuulay.