(Previous Incident Code: SOM131A)

A reported tweet from Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency – apparently since deleted – referred to a joint raid on February 2nd by Somali and US forces which was said to have killed 40 al Shabaab fighters.

Goobjoog News, which picked up on the original tweet, said that “The National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) said in a tweet Tuesday the airstrike in Farsooley in Lower Shabelle region neutralized 40 militants following an earlier raid by NISA forces. NISA said its forces had, prior to the strike raided two areas where the militants had been collecting taxes from locals. The forces seized weapons and destroyed structures used by the militants, the statement added.

“It was not immediately clear if the strike was different from the one US Africa Command (AFRICOM) reported on the same day. AFRICOM said February 2nd it carried out an airstrike in Gandarshe in Lower Shabelle region killing 13 Al-Shabaab militants.”

While the original NISA reference appears to have been deleted, a surviving Tweet [in Somali] obliquely references an operation which had followed on from an action that “killed 40 AS [Al Shabaab] members.”

It is also possible that any airstrike was a Kenyan military action.

Given the distance from Farsooley to Gandarshe (scene of a declared US military strike on the same date) Airwars is treating these as separate events.

Asked whether it had been responsible for this event, in February 2020 a senior AFRICOM official told Airwars that this was not the case. However, this may not preclude actions by the CIA which conducts its own undeclared strikes in Somalia.