According to insider reports, US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon and his senior national security advisers to begin drafting plans for a total withdrawal of US forces from Somalia. The US has between 650 and 800 troops in the war-torn East African nation, where it has waged an undeclared war since 2007.
“People familiar with the matter” told Bloomberg on Tuesday that the Pentagon had begun drafting plans to pull all US troops out of Somalia.
In March 2017, Trump declared Somalia an “area of active hostilities,” signaling an increase in tempo that soon saw more than 600 US troops dispatched to the area. Now, however, it seems Trump may be considering bringing them home, just his latest attempt to deliver on a 2016 campaign promise to end the “era of endless wars” before he stands for reelection in November.
Trump and his advisers being on the same page is not always something that can be taken for granted, as the recent disparate estimates about the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan have shown.
Last Wednesday, O’Brien said the US would have just 2,500 troops in the Central Asian nation by early 2021, with the goal of bringing all US troops home by May 2021. However, just hours later, Trump tweeted that in fact, all US troops would come home from Afghanistan by Christmas 2020.
Future for Drone War Unclear
Even if all US troops leave Somalia, that does not mean an end to the undeclared drone war the US has waged against al-Shabaab since 2007. The unmanned aerial vehicles and the spy planes that spot targets for them and monitor the aftermath of a strike fly from neighboring countries like Kenya.
An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle
According to data collected by Airwars, an NGO affiliated with the University of London, since 2007, AFRICOM has carried out some 235 airstrikes in Somalia and killed between 1,807 and 2,422 al-Shabaab fighters. However, AFRICOM has admitted to just five civilian deaths, while the academics found evidence of between 72 and 145 civilians killed in that time.
Still, just last month, AFRICOM was pushing to expand the air war into Kenya in reaction to al-Shabaab increasingly crossing the border, as they did in January when they mounted an attack on Manda Bay, one such base from which the air war is waged.
Debate Over Where Troops Are Needed
There remains considerable debate about whether or not the Trump administration’s push to withdraw troops not only from Somalia, but the entire AFRICOM area of responsibility, is a wise policy. The Pentagon has justified plans to shift significant numbers of the roughly 5,000 US troops in Africa to other theaters based on prioritizing “inter-state strategic competition” with Russia and China instead of the War on Terror.
U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to Bravo Co. 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division carry equipment through a pond during the team obstacle course at the French Jungle Warfare School near Yemen, Gabon, June 9, 2016.
On the other side of the coin, Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, who commands AFRICOM, has argued that keeping US troops in Africa is also a way to fight Russia and China, because it denies them opportunities to expand their influence there.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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