TRUMP ORDERS TROOPS OUT OF SOMALIA

President Donald Trump, continuing his endof-term troop withdrawals from conf licts around the world, will pull U.S. troops out of Somalia, where they have been involved in trying to push back advances by Islamist insurgents in the Horn of Africa.

The Pentagon announced Friday that virtually all of the approximately 700 troops in Somalia — most Special Operations troops who have been conducting training and counterterrorism missions — will be leaving by Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to be inaugurated.

Many of the troops will be “repositioned” to nearby Kenya, a Defense Department official said Friday.

The United States will retain the ability to conduct counterterrorism operations in Somalia and to collect early warnings and indicators regarding threats to the United States and allies from militant forces in the country.

The mission in Somalia was in the spotlight in recent days, after it was reported that a veteran CIA officer was killed in combat in Somalia, according to current and former U.S. officials. The officer was a member of the CIA’s paramilitary division, the Special Activities Center, and a former member of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6.

The troop withdrawal from Somalia comes just two weeks after Trump ordered the military to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, halving the number there to just over 2,000. Reductions in the U.S. troop presence in

Iraq also are under way.

Defense Department officials familiar with internal deliberations said the Somalia pullout would not apply to American forces stationed in nearby Kenya and Djibouti, where American drones that carry out airstrikes in Somalia are based.

Keeping those air bases would mean retaining the military’s ability to use drones to attack militants with al-Shabab, an alQaeda-linked terrorist group — at least those deemed to pose a threat to

American interests.

Exiting foreign conf licts has been a central component of Trump’s “America First” agenda since he ran for office in 2016. The president views his record on this issue as important to any political future he might pursue.

Trump’s push to leave Somalia before the end of his term comes at a delicate time: Somalia is preparing for parliamentary elections next month and a presidential election scheduled for early February.