Somalia: 84 US strikes in nine months, and families in Lower Juba left without answers

The United States conducted at least 84 airstrikes in Somalia between January and September 2026, according to public statements from the US Africa Command (AFRICOM); the New America foundation counted 88 over the same period. In an investigation published on October 20, 2026, Al Jazeera collected testimonies from families in Lower Juba who say they are still waiting for someone to explain what hit their homes.

A pace four times higher than the previous period

According to Anna Zahn of the monitoring organization Airwars, the strikes conducted under Donald Trump's second term almost equal the total of his first term, which is about four times the pace of the Biden presidency. David Sterman of New America observes that these strikes initially targeted the Islamic State affiliate in the north of the country in early 2025, before refocusing toward the south throughout 2026.

Airwars estimates that at least 216 civilians were killed or injured by US strikes in Somalia between 2007 and the end of May 2025. The organization presents this figure as a minimum, and it predates the operations conducted around Jamaame.

Jamaame, November 2025: two counts that do not align

Washington acknowledged conducting strikes in the Jamaame area on November 14 and 15, 2025. A monitoring network led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recorded 12 civilians killed between November 16 and 18, 2025, during fighting and strikes in that sector, and 22,800 people fleeing over those three days, a displacement it describes as "rapid and widespread." For their part, Jubaland authorities announced at least 56 Al-Shabab fighters killed and 20 captured, figures that Al Jazeera indicates it could not verify.

AFRICOM responded that reports mentioning 10 to 12 civilians killed in Jamaame did not meet its threshold for attribution, formulated as "more likely than not." The command did not disclose the number of strikes or munitions used, citing operational security, and did not detail the elements of its assessment, which it says is based on largely non-public intelligence. It did not specify whether its investigators had spoken to the families involved, but indicated that the assessment could be reviewed if new evidence emerged.

Families tell their stories, and pay the price

Maryam Haji Abdi Guled recounts that her son Abdiqadir Salah, then seven years old, was wounded by shrapnel near his hip during an attack on their home that she attributes to US drones. The child underwent surgery in Mogadishu in September 2026, after a fundraiser launched by the Guardian, but a fragment could not be removed due to the risk of paralysis. Ali Aden Borrow, a 52-year-old farmer, lost his pregnant wife and their unborn child; he says he has fallen into debt and received almost no outside help. Nuur Ali Nuur describes a wife paralyzed in her lower limbs, without the means to get her treated quickly in a better-equipped facility. Ugaas Ahmed Ugaas Said Ali, chief of the Bimaal clan, asserts that many of the wounded never reached the capital.

Mogadishu between dependence and unease

On September 13, 2025, a strike near Badhan, in the north, killed Omar Abdullahi, a clan elder whom AFRICOM later presented as an Al-Shabab arms trafficker. The Puntland judicial police state that he had no criminal record. Somali Defense Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi challenged this death before Parliament, arguing that the man could have been questioned rather than targeted. Yet, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had stated in September 2025 that US military support had become "more important and much easier" to obtain.

A national security official, Ahmed Suleiman Hussein, had written in May that the damage caused to civilians risked fueling recruitment for Al-Shabab and the Islamic State; Somalia has since adopted a national policy for the protection of civilians. Furthermore, the 2026 US counterterrorism strategy returned the power to approve strikes to military commanders, ending the centralized procedure of the Biden era. US law authorizes up to $3 million per year in discretionary payments for civilian harm, and General Dagvin Anderson, commander of AFRICOM, stated in Mogadishu in July that his military had made mistakes and "paid reparations."

What remains is the question posed by these families, which the Al Jazeera investigation leaves open: before which jurisdiction, Somali or American, does an African civilian killed by a foreign strike obtain redress? The Somali Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment from the Qatari media outlet.