The human cost of surging US air strikes in Somalia

Mogadishu, Somalia – Nearly a twelvemonth aft a suspected US onslaught successful confederate Somalia near shrapnel embedded successful her son’s body, Maryam Haji Abdi Guled inactive feels compelled to travel him to school.

She fears different kid mightiness propulsion him portion playing, disturbing a fragment of metallic lodged adjacent his hip. Doctors person warned that removing it could permission him paralysed.

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“I clasp his hand, instrumentality him to school, and I bring him backmost myself. I ticker implicit him,” she told Al Jazeera.

Her son, Abdiqadir Salah, was 7 erstwhile helium was injured during a November 2025 military violative involving United States aerial strikes and Somali crushed forces astir Jamaame, successful Somalia’s confederate Jubaland state.

Maryam is among respective survivors interviewed by Al Jazeera successful caller months who accidental household members were killed oregon earnestly injured during the offensive. Their accounts picture deaths, displacement, mislaid livelihoods and injuries that proceed to signifier their lives.

Their testimonies travel arsenic US aerial operations against equipped rebel groups successful Somalia person intensified sharply nether President Donald Trump.

Public records from the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) listed 84 strikes successful Somalia done September 2026, portion the New America Foundation, which independently tracks the campaign, documented 88 implicit the aforesaid period.

The US subject has acknowledged conducting air strikes successful the area connected November 14 and 15, 2025. But it disputes allegations that its craft caused civilian casualties.

AFRICOM told Al Jazeera it had completed an appraisal of reports that US operations killed betwixt 10 and 12 civilians and destroyed homes and businesses successful Jamaame. It concluded that the accusation reviewed did not conscionable the military’s “more apt than not” threshold for determining that US aerial strikes had caused the reported harm.

Abdiqadir Salah, injured successful a November 2025 bombardment adjacent Jamaame, poses for a representation successful Mogadishu, wherever helium has been receiving attraction aft shrapnel was lodged successful his assemblage [Fardosa Hussein/Al Jazeera]

That uncovering does not found that US strikes caused nary harm. Rather, AFRICOM said the grounds did not found that US operations were much apt than not to person caused the reported casualties and damage.

Al Jazeera asked whether investigators had spoken to survivors, relatives of those killed, infirmary staff, section authorities oregon different witnesses. AFRICOM did not accidental whether they had done so.

The bid said the appraisal could beryllium reopened if caller accusation emerged that mightiness alteration its findings.

The decision contrasts with accounts from families who accidental they witnessed the bombardment and with autarkic monitoring reports documenting civilian deaths and wide displacement during the offensive.

For those who mislaid loved ones oregon were near caring for earnestly injured relatives, whether they volition ever get justness remains unresolved.

A greeting of bombardment

Maryam remembers the greeting craft appeared implicit Jamaame. She was preparing meal aft her children returned from schoolhouse erstwhile they heard a roar overhead. Aircraft had go truthful communal that the household nary longer regarded the dependable arsenic unusual.

“The craft ne'er permission us, nighttime oregon day, and we person go accustomed to them,” she said.

Her children ran extracurricular towards the noise. Maryam followed, intending to bring them backmost wrong earlier the household fled. Then a munition struck nearby, followed by different detonation adjacent the beforehand door. More bombardment followed astir the house.

Abdiqadir Salah present lives successful Mogadishu, Somalia’s superior and its largest metropolis [Fardosa Hussein/Al Jazeera]

Maryam believes the onslaught connected her location was carried retired by US drones that had been circling implicit the municipality earlier the bombardment.

Ugaas Ahmed Ugaas Said Ali, a Bimaal clan main who remains successful regular interaction with families affected by the attacks, said the suffering extended acold beyond those who had managed to permission Jamaame.

“Maryam is 1 of the fortunate radical who has been capable to get aesculapian care. There are galore injured radical near successful the municipality from that violative who haven’t been capable to marque it to Mogadishu,” helium said.

The costs that remain

Maryam recalled 1 munition hitting the crushed without exploding, portion different strikes killed radical nearby. Amid the explosions, she became separated from her children. Three of her six children were wounded, including Abdiqadir, who suffered the astir superior injuries.

It took her a time and a nighttime to scope aesculapian attraction successful Mogadishu. During the journey, which lasted much than 24 hours, her lad bled and struggled with pain.

Her acquisition was 1 of respective reported during days of warring successful and astir Jamaame.

According to Jubaland authorities, Somali authorities and determination forces, including the US-trained Danab commando unit, launched operations against positions held by the equipped radical al-Shabab successful villages surrounding the town.

The authorities said astatine slightest 56 al-Shabab fighters were killed and 20 captured. Al Jazeera could not independently verify those figures.

AFRICOM declined to disclose however galore strikes were conducted oregon which munitions were used, citing operational security.

Witnesses interviewed by Al Jazeera said the bombardment came without warning. Three radical – 2 who said they had mislaid household members, and different whose location was destroyed – declined to talk connected the record, citing concerns astir their safety.

Ali said residents were acrophobic to sermon losses caused by aerial strikes and authorities offensives due to the fact that they feared reprisals.

A monitoring web led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) documented 12 civilian deaths during warring and aerial strikes astir Jamaame betwixt November 16 and 18, 2025.

The figures screen antithetic phases of an violative involving some aerial strikes and crushed fighting, making it hard to found which forces were liable for idiosyncratic deaths.

The UNHCR-led web besides recorded 22,800 radical fleeing Jamaame and surrounding villages betwixt November 16 and 18, describing the displacement arsenic “rapid and widespread”.

It reported harm to shops and retention facilities, restrictions connected civilian question successful al-Shabab-controlled areas, and signs of intelligence distress among those who had escaped.

(Al Jazeera)

For Ali Aden Borrow, a 52-year-old husbandman from Jamaame, the violative devastated his family. He was distant from location erstwhile helium received a telephone telephone telling him that his woman had been hit.

She was 9 months large and trying to stitchery their children to flight the warring erstwhile debris from what Ali described arsenic an aerial onslaught struck her neck. She and her unborn kid died.

Their 3 surviving children, 2 girls and a boy, yet went to unrecorded with their grandmother. Ali has since moved betwixt villages and Kismayo, Jubaland’s de facto determination capital, searching for enactment and trying to enactment them.

The outgo of food, transport and different necessities has near him successful debt. He said the household had received small extracurricular assistance.

Another farmer, Nuur Ali Nuur, was moving his onshore erstwhile his woman was injured during the aforesaid play of fighting. He told Al Jazeera that debris from an aerial onslaught struck her little assemblage and close hand, leaving her paralysed from the waist down.

Their youngest daughter, who was inactive breastfeeding, was besides somewhat injured. Neighbours helped transport his woman to infirmary portion Nuur struggled to attraction for their 5 children.

He said helium could not spend to instrumentality her promptly to better-equipped aesculapian facilities and inactive owed wealth for her treatment. Even the travel towards Kismayo depended connected persuading a operator to judge outgo later.

Anna Zahn, the US-based archive pb astatine Airwars, said the consequences of aerial strikes could past for years. Injuries were often under-reported successful Somalia, wherever attraction could beryllium costly and prolonged.

“In fact, the aesculapian attraction that is needed whitethorn not adjacent beryllium disposable due to the fact that the precise aforesaid strikes that caused the injuries could’ve damaged the infrastructure needed – roads, cars, hospitals, factories – to supply precocious and sustained aesculapian care,” Zahn said.

Earlier probe successful Jubaland by the bid organisation PAX documented chronic injuries, mislaid livelihoods, displacement and intelligence trauma pursuing alleged US aerial strikes. Researchers said they could not found the people presumption of those progressive successful astir of the cases examined.

What did the US probe establish?

Al Jazeera presented AFRICOM with the accounts of Maryam, Ali and Nuur, including the reported deaths of Ali’s large woman and unborn child, the injuries that near Nuur’s woman incapable to walk, and the shrapnel wounds suffered by Maryam’s children.

AFRICOM did not supply the underlying grounds supporting its assessment. It said its investigations gully connected quality and operational reporting, overmuch of which is not publically available. It besides did not accidental whether investigators had obtained grounds straight from the affected families.

Zahn said immoderate strikes announced by AFRICOM generated nary section reporting that researchers could find. In different cases, witnesses described harm that could not beryllium confidently attributed to a peculiar force.

She added that AFRICOM had mostly stopped routinely disclosing the fig of fighters killed oregon injured successful idiosyncratic onslaught announcements from aboriginal 2025, reducing the accusation disposable for autarkic comparison.

AFRICOM has antecedently revised its findings connected civilian casualties successful Somalia, acknowledging deaths caused by its operations aft initially reporting that nary civilians had been harmed.

The bid said that erstwhile an appraisal establishes that US subject operations much apt than not caused civilian harm, it considers due and feasible responses, alongside measures intended to forestall akin incidents.

Those responses whitethorn see acknowledgement, an apology oregon compensation, depending connected the circumstances. US authorities makes up to $3m disposable annually for discretionary payments to radical killed oregon injured, oregon whose spot was damaged, during US oregon conjugation subject operations.

Decisions besides instrumentality relationship of factors including proposal from the big authorities and imaginable risks associated with distributing payments.

Speaking successful Mogadishu successful July, AFRICOM commandant General Dagvin Anderson said determination had been occasions erstwhile US forces made mistakes and “provided reparations”. He besides said the bid investigated each credible reports of civilian harm.

Questions implicit targeting

On September 13, 2025, AFRICOM carried retired a onslaught adjacent Badhan successful bluish Somalia that it said killed Omar Abdullahi, a section clan elder travelling arsenic portion of a convoy. The bid aboriginal identified him arsenic an al-Shabab arms dealer.

Puntland’s Criminal Investigation Department subsequently said Abdullahi had nary transgression grounds and was not nether investigation.

Somalia’s Defence Ahmed Moallim Fiqi contested the sidesplitting successful parliament, saying Abdullahi could person been questioned alternatively than targeted.

AFRICOM told Al Jazeera that its civilian-harm appraisal of the onslaught did not conscionable the “more apt than not” threshold for attributing civilian harm to US operations.

Somalia’s Minister of Defence Ahmed Moallim Fiqi speaks during a plenary league of the Xiangshan Forum successful Beijing, China, connected September 19, 2025 [Greg Baker/AFP]

Asked whether it inactive considered Abdullahi an al-Shabab arms dealer, what grounds supported that assertion and whether the targeting determination had been reviewed, AFRICOM did not straight answer.

AFRICOM distinguishes betwixt deliberate strikes, which are taxable to aggregate layers of review, and antiaircraft strikes against imminent threats.

Its wide explanation of combatants includes radical deemed to supply worldly enactment for hostilities. This raises questions astir however specified determinations are made and however the criteria impact the hazard of civilians being targeted.

The US says its strikes are conducted successful coordination with Somalia’s national government. Somalia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera’s petition for comment.

That practice has go progressively important arsenic Washington expands its aerial run against al-Shabab and the ISIL (ISIS)-affiliated equipped radical successful bluish Somalia.

An expanding aerial war

Zahn said the fig of strikes during Trump’s 2nd presidency had astir reached the full carried retired passim his archetypal term, astatine astir 4 times the complaint recorded nether erstwhile US President Joe Biden.

Airwars information analysed for a abstracted probe documented astatine slightest 216 civilians killed oregon wounded successful US strikes successful Somalia betwixt 2007 and the extremity of May 2025.

That fig represents lone the casualties the organisation was capable to document, not an estimation of the afloat toll. It besides predates the violative astir Jamaame.

US aerial operations successful Somalia day backmost astir 2 decades, erstwhile Washington began conducting strikes against suspected al-Qaeda-linked fighters successful 2007. The run has since expanded into sustained subject enactment for Somali forces warring al-Shabab and, much recently, the ISIL affiliate successful Somalia.

Under Trump, the US has loosened restrictions connected who tin authorise aerial strikes. The administration’s 2026 “counterterrorism” strategy says greater support authorization was returned to subject commanders soon aft Trump took office, reversing the much centralised procedures utilized nether Biden.

Anderson has welcomed the accrued operational flexibility, saying it allows faster responses and much accelerated aerial strikes arsenic further US subject assets go available.

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud besides acknowledged the alteration during an quality astatine the Council connected Foreign Relations successful September 2025.

“During the epoch of President Trump, it is bigger and overmuch easier than before,” helium said of US subject support.

US officials reason that al-Shabab remains a nonstop menace to American interests. During his US Senate information process successful 2025, Anderson described the radical arsenic al-Qaeda’s largest, wealthiest and astir lethal affiliate. He said some al-Shabab and Somalia’s ISIL affiliate aspired to onslaught the United States.

Yet the enlargement of US aerial operations has not eliminated al-Shabab, which has repeatedly regained territory aft offensives by Somali and allied forces.

David Sterman, a elder argumentation expert astatine the New America Foundation, said US operations nether Trump initially concentrated connected the ISIL affiliate successful bluish Somalia successful aboriginal 2025, but gradually shifted backmost towards the southbound during 2026, historically the main absorption of the run against al-Shabab.

Ahmed Suleiman Hussein, a nationalist information official, wrote connected X successful May that authorities probe had recovered that civilian harm from aerial strikes could make grievances that al-Shabab and the ISIL affiliate mightiness exploit for propaganda and recruitment.

Somalia has since adopted a nationalist civilian-protection policy, which Hussein said needed to beryllium consistently incorporated into “counterterrorism” operations.

A household incapable to return

For Maryam, the Jamaame violative has reshaped astir each portion of her family’s life. After her children were injured, she initially fled into the countryside, but determination was nary infirmary susceptible of treating Abdiqadir.

She yet made the astir 24-hour travel to Mogadishu, astatine times carrying him against her assemblage due to the fact that his injuries near him incapable to beryllium oregon basal without terrible pain.

“He was bleeding successful the car and it was a unsmooth road,” she said.

Once successful the capital, Maryam moved betwixt hospitals, searching for treatment. Doctors warned that removing the shrapnel lodged adjacent Abdiqadir’s hep could termination him oregon permission him paralysed, she said.

At respective hospitals, she was asked to motion documents absolving aesculapian unit of work if country caused further harm.

A portion of shrapnel remains lodged successful Abdiqadir Salah’s broadside aft helium was injured during bombardment adjacent Jamaame successful November 2025 [Fardosa Hussein/Al Jazeera]

“I said, ‘No, I volition not sign. Bring my lad retired to me,’” she recalled.

At different hospital, doctors recommended amputating his leg, which she besides refused. In September 2026, aft a fundraising run by the British paper The Guardian helped screen his treatment, Abdiqadir underwent country successful Mogadishu.

Doctors removed 2 pieces of shrapnel but near different successful spot due to the fact that of the hazard of paralysis.

“He is presently capable to play and move, and we can’t instrumentality this risk,” Maryam said.

She has remained successful Mogadishu to support him adjacent to aesculapian care, incapable to resume the farming and livestock enactment that erstwhile supported her household successful Jamaame.

“I cannot instrumentality determination now. This kid volition not get aesculapian attraction there, and the concern that we fled yesterday is inactive there, it is adjacent imaginable that thing worse could happen,” she said.