Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
Geolocation
Geolocation
Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: SOM087)
AFRICOM reported that the previous day it had “conducted an airstrike against al-Shabaab militants on Feb. 26, in the vicinity of Jilib, Somalia”.
It added: “We assess no civilians were killed in this strike.” However, AFRICOM claimed that the airstrike killed two terrorists and wounded two more.
Shabelle Media Network had reported a strike carried out by unknown forces, but said this had occurred the day after the action confirmed by AFRICOM. Sources told them it had hit an al Shabaab controlled town.
One resident said a militant camp was targeted in the district of Jilib, described as an al Shabaab strong-hold in the Middle Juba region. Jilib appears to be both a district and a town. Jilib was the site of another confirmed US strike on February 19th 2018.
In a subsequent FOIA response obtained by journalist Joshua Eaton in May 2019, AFRICOM confirmed it had struck on February 26th what it says were “al-Shabaab Fighters”, in the vicinity of Jilib, Somalia.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention that the strike took place in the vicinity of the town Jilib, for which the coordinates are: 0.494527, 42.777868. Due to limited information and satellite imagery available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.