Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees all American military operations on the continent, characterized the airstrike as a “collective self-defense strike” in its public announcement, a description that allowed commanders to stay in line with the Biden Administration’s mandate that airstrikes in Somalia be approved by the White House unless they’re taken in self-defense.Īl-Shabab strikes in the capital of Mogadishu at will. The Somalis gained back control of Cammaara, which lies on a coastal smuggling route that is valuable to al-Shabab. bombing run ultimately turned the fight in Danab’s favor. With their allies under serious threat, they ordered up an airstrike on the militants’ positions. forces were sitting far from the combat in a makeshift operations center elsewhere in Somalia, where they attempted to remotely advise their Somali partners, called the Danab Brigade, via encrypted radio. The explosion was the beginning of a multipronged al-Shabab attack that left four Somali soldiers dead and several others wounded.Īs the chaos unfolded on the ground, American special operators deployed as part of Operation Octave Quartz were watching through the high-powered cameras of a drone flying overhead. Suddenly the road erupted into a fireball.
24, a truck loaded with goats and sheep pulled up to a Somali military camp near the central town of Cammaara. 6 attempted insurrection at the Capitol, the FBI rates as the single biggest threat to the homeland today. At home, he’s increased counterterrorism investigations of domestic violent extremists, which, after the Jan. Biden has already halted most lethal drone strikes, ordering commanders to consult the White House on decisions to strike, and has initiated a review of when such lethal force should be used. His national-security team is finishing a new counterterrorism strategy that will in turn decide how big a global deployment of forces the U.S. Just how deeply Biden should invest in what used to be called the Global War on Terror has been the subject of live debate inside the Administration. These missions are undertaken by 50,000 men and women on the front lines of an active, under-the-radar conflict mainly waged in the Middle East and Africa.
troops were on counterterrorism operations. In a June 8 letter to Congress, Biden listed a dozen nations, from Niger to the Philippines, where U.S. An additional 900 forces are on the ground in Syria within striking distance of ISIS and al-Qaeda. forces operate from bases across Iraq, where they routinely come under rocket and mortar attack. Some 1,500 miles northeast of Lemonnier, about 2,500 U.S. The President plans to fight terrorism from “over the horizon,” he says, parachuting in special operators, using drones and intercepted intelligence, and training partner foreign forces. One month after his chaotic Afghan pullout, Biden is continuing the work his predecessors began, drawing down high-profile military missions abroad while keeping heavily armed, highly engaged counterterrorism task forces in place in trouble spots.
Despite President Joe Biden’s pledges to end America’s “forever wars,” he doesn’t plan a retreat from global counterterrorism missions. The operation may be a sign of things to come. General Stephen Townsend, commander of military operations in Africa, describes it as “commuting to work.” The Pentagon has dubbed the mission Operation Octave Quartz. The commando teams emerge anonymously from behind the gates and board lumbering cargo planes to fly across Djibouti’s southern border with Somalia for what they call “episodic engagements” with local forces fighting al-Shabab, al-Qaeda’s largest offshoot. Inside, two subcamps sit behind opaque 20-ft. Unfolding over miles of sun-scorched desert and volcanic rock inside the tiny country of Djibouti, the base looks-the troops stationed here will tell you-like a sand-colored prison fortress. special-operations teams tasked with fighting the world’s most powerful al-Qaeda affiliates.
Camp Lemonnier, a 550-acre military base, houses U.S. In a remote corner of eastern Africa, behind tiers of razor wire and concrete blast walls, it’s possible to get a glimpse of America’s unending war on terrorism.