Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
Geolocation
Geolocation
Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: SOM065)
On November 17th 2017, US Africa Command sent the Bureau of Investigative Journalism a list of previously unreported strikes, which included this one.
An AFRICOM spokesperson explained that their goal “is to be as transparent as possible while taking into account operational security, force protection and diplomatic sensitivities.” It therefore did not proactively release information about all of its strikes. It was limited to confirming or denying US operations took place when asked directly for those strikes that were not cleared to be reported in press releases.
The spokesperson would not say specifically where the attacks hit, telling the Bureau that the best they could say was all the unreported strikes were conducted in southern Somalia, “for operational security reasons”.
However in a subsequent FOIA response obtained by journalist Joshua Eaton in May 2019, AFRICOM said it had struck what it says were al Shabaab fighters, in the vicinity of Mubaraak.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident only mention that the strike took place in the vicinity of Mubaraak (مبارك), for which the coordinates are: 1.9172773, 44.7731843. Due to limited information and satellite imagery available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.