1 American Soldier Killed, 4 Wounded in Somalia Firefight

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Special Operations soldier was killed and four others were wounded Friday in a southwestern Somalia gunbattle against fighters for the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, three Defense Department officials said. The attack marked the first combat casualties that have been publicized in Africa since an ambush in Niger in October.

The U.S. forces were alongside Somali troops at a small outpost near the town of Jamaame when they came under small arms and mortar fire, Defense Department officials said Friday.

The U.S. team was backed up by armed surveillance aircraft, the officials said. Al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida, claimed credit for the attack; it has been fighting U.S. forces in East Africa for more than a decade.

In a post picked up by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremist message boards, al-Shabab said its fighters had struck a joint U.S.-Somali base on the outskirts of Kismayo, mounting what it called a “fierce attack.”

The roughly 500 U.S. troops in Somalia are mostly composed of a number of Special Operations units, including Army Green Berets, Marine Raiders and Navy SEALs spread across the country.

Friday’s fight, the extremist group said, came a day after al-Shabab overran a Somali National Army base near Baidoa and ambushed other Somali soldiers in Mogadishu’s Huriwa district.

The attacks come as the U.S. military looks to drawn down counterterror forces in Africa as part of a larger Pentagon plan to pivot its focus on combating Russia, China and other great powers.

It was the second U.S. combat death in Somalia in the past 13 months. In May 2017, a member of the Navy SEALs was killed and two other U.S. service members wounded in a raid the Pentagon initially described as an “advise, assist and accompany” mission.

Defense Department officials said at first that Somali government troops had led that operation, and al-Shabab militants had attacked U.S. forces that were hanging back. But U.S. military leaders later acknowledged that the Navy SEALs were operating alongside the Somali military when they launched the raid.

Friday’s attack also follows the Oct. 4 ambush in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers, their interpreter, and four Nigerien troops. That ambush has opened a debate in Washington over the U.S. military mission in Africa. The Pentagon has carefully monitored the spread of radical Islamic jihad across Africa but insisted that U.S. troops are there to train and partner with local forces, not necessarily to fight.

Over the past year, U.S. military officials have expressed new concerns about al-Shabab, which was responsible for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on African soil when it struck a popular mall in Nairobi in 2013. Officials worry the extremist group is in the midst of a resurgence after losing much of the territory it once held in Somalia and many of its fighters in the past several years.

In September 2014, U.S. officials said they believed a drone strike crippled the group by killing its leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, who at the time was one of the most wanted men in Africa. That strike was followed by another one in March 2015, when Adan Garar, a senior member of al-Shabab, was killed in his vehicle.

But al-Shabab no longer appears to be crippled by the killings of Godane and Garar. In the past two months, Shabab militants have claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed more than 150 people, including Kenyan soldiers stationed at a remote desert outpost and beachcombers in Mogadishu, the capital.

Two months ago, the group carried out multiple coordinated attacks against African Union peacekeeping forces, killing dozens of Ugandan soldiers.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that a sweeping Pentagon review of elite U.S. commando missions is likely to result in a sharp cut — by as much as half over the next three years — in Special Operations forces in Africa.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have ordered the military’s Special Operations and Africa commands to present a range of options by mid-June to balance rising security challenges — which also include North Korea and Iran — with vital counterterrorism operations.

More than 7,300 Special Operations troops are working around the world, many of them conducting shadow wars against terrorists in Yemen, Libya, Somalia and other hot spots.