Navy SEAL killed in Somalia in raid

WASHINGTON — A Navy SEAL was killed and two other American service members were injured in a raid Friday in Somalia, the first American combat death there since the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993.

The death came amid escalating U.S. involvement in a war against an Islamist militant group called the Shabab and showed the difficulty of fighting in the African country plagued by drought and famine.

The episode highlighted a deepening anomaly: the U.S. Africa Command, which oversees American military operations in Somalia, has yet to act on new authority from President Donald Trump freeing it from Obama-era constraints on strikes against the Shabab. The commando’s death came during a Somali military operation, not an American one.

The head of Africa Command, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, has said he is exercising caution in using his new authority to launch Americanled missions, taking into consideration the difficulty of conducting opera-tions amid civilians on the move in search of food and aid workers scrambling to provide it.

Although Gen. Waldhauser’s caution comes amid increased scrutiny on control that Mr. Trump has ceded to the military, Trump administration officials have begun questioning why Africa Command, which pushed to be unleashed, has carried out no operations under its new authority. Several said a meeting next week on the topic is under consideration by the National Security Council’s so-called Deputies Committee, convening top aides from the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence agencies and elsewhere .

Defense Department officials said the service member, who was not identified, was killed during an operation in which Americans advised and assisted Somali troops targeting a Shabab compound. Pentagon helicopters delivered Somali forces to the operation, and American advisers hung back, per the rules of engagement, while the Somalis carried out the raid.

“That’s when our forces came under fire,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said. He said the attackers were “quickly neutralized on the ground,” but he would not say whether the operation was considered successful.