The Pentagon has revealed that one US soldier and two military contractors were among those killed when al-Shabaab militants stormed a base used by US and Kenyan forces in the coastal Kenyan county of Lamu early Sunday morning.
Two additional Department of Defense personnel were among the wounded, the US military confirmed. Several US warplanes were also damaged during the raid.
Kenyan authorities say five al-Shabaab fighters were killed after the group briefly penetrated the perimeter of Manda Airbase, before being pushed back.
The Somalia-based armed group said it had killed nine Kenyan soldiers and inflicted 17 casualties on the camp’s American defenders.
US Army General Stephen Townsend, commander of the country’s Africa Command, promised to “pursue those responsible for this attack,” explaining that the US would “remain committed to preventing al-Shabaab from maintaining a safe haven to plan deadly attacks against the US homeland, East African, and international partners.”
Al-Shabaab has stepped up its operations in recent weeks, with multiple attacks on civilian transport infrastructure in Kenya’s volatile northeast and a high-profile bombing of a crowded intersection in Mogadishu on December 28, which killed nearly 80.
The group fiercely opposes Kenya’s military intervention in Somalia’s civil conflict. Thousands of Kenyan troops have been deployed in Somalia since 2011, most recently as part of a 21,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force that supports the shaky, Western-backed Somali government against which al-Shabaab has waged a protracted insurgency.
The US is also active in the conflict, having sharply escalated it’s decade-long bombing campaign in Somalia — an ramp-up that has also brought about a significant uptick in civilian deaths, according to Amnesty International.
Washington carried out 63 airstrikes in the country in 2019 – more than any year prior. The average number of US airstrikes in Somalia has more than doubled since Donald Trump took power.
Africa is becoming an increasingly important and deadly arena for US military operations overseas. The country keeps roughly 300 troops deployed in Kenya and close to 500 in Somalia, according to military sources.
2018 saw one US soldier killed and four wounded by al-Shabaab militants in southwestern Somalia, while the previous year saw four US soldiers killed in an ambush by Islamic State-aligned fighters in Niger.
