For years now, the Pentagon has maintained a little to no civilian casualties in airstrikes and raids in Somalia. Last week, the United States launched an airstrike that killed 14 civilians, the first 14 civilian deaths from an airstrike in Somalia since 2017 alone.
The United States has repeatedly claimed that no civilian casualties have occurred from airstrikes that have been launched against the extremist group known as the Shabab. African Command and official have run through the reports and confirmed that there were no civilian casualties.
The United States has stated that there were no casualties in the strike and that the Shabab is making up the casualties and coercing the locals into making false claims saying that civilians were killed. Though this claim was stated, Defense Officials stated in a conference that it is hard to differentiate between civilians and Somalian extremists when launching the airstrikes.
In my opinion, the United States needs to take a little more precaution when launching airstrikes into extremist and civilian populated areas. The military needs to revert back to how it operated under Obama’s administration, in which before a strike was commenced, the target needed to pose a threat to the United States, in which the Somalian extremists pose little to no threat, and no bystanders were to be in range of the strike, in which the United States did not take into consideration.
Using force against the Shabab extremist group is very important as they are slowly evolving their use of terrorism and how many places they are carrying out these acts, but the United States needs to take into consideration how many civilians are bystanders in areas that they strike as no civilian should die just because they are in the wrong place, as most of them cannot help it.