US advises commandos in Somalia
Elite unit is trained to lead fight against al-qaida affiliate
BALEDOGLE, Somalia — The promise and perils of America’s counterterrorism campaign were on full display at a remote training base in central Somalia.
It was graduation day for 346 recruits who would join an elite Somali commando unit trained by the State Department, advised by U.S. special operations forces, and backed by American air power.
Since last August, the unit, called Danab, has spearheaded a string of Somali army victories against al-shabab, an Islamist terrorist group that is considered the deadliest of al-qaida’s global branches.
“We’re more dedicated than ever,” said 2nd Lt. Shukri Yusuf Ali, 24, who joined the unit two years ago as one of its few female members and was recently selected to attend the U.S. Army infantry training course at Fort Benning, Georgia.
But sadness hung over the ceremony. Many of the recruits will be rushed to the front lines to backfill two Danab battalions decimated by an al-shabab attack last month that left more than 100 Somali soldiers dead or injured.
Thirty years ago, the U.S. military’s main mission in Somalia was to make the capital, Mogadishu, and outlying areas in a famine belt safe enough for aid deliveries, which had been interrupted by fighting among Somali factions.
The United States withdrew from the country after the “Black Hawk Down” episode of 1993, when Somali militia fighters killed 18 U.S. service members in a blazing battle later depicted in books and Hollywood movies.
Now, nearly two decades after the rise of al-shabab, Somalia is the most active front in the “forever wars” that the United States has been waging against Islamist extremists since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The American fight against al-shabab began in 2014 with a handful of military advisers and grew steadily to a 700-member training force that President Donald Trump withdrew just before leaving office in 2021. President Joe Biden restored 450 of the troops last year to advise Somali soldiers fighting an al-shabab insurgency that still controls much of the country’s south.
Somalia is also the center of a U.S. counterterrorism drone war that has waned in other hot spots like Yemen, Libya and Pakistan’s tribal areas where U.S. airstrikes have diminished the threat. In the past year, the United States has carried out about 20 airstrikes in Somalia, down from a peak of 63 in 2019. Nearly all of the past year’s strikes, however, were in “collective self-defense” of Somali forces.
A rare embed with U.S. special operations forces in Somali recently offered a window into a counterterrorism world in which a small number of Americans, usually far from the front lines, are advising and assisting Somali troops waging a ferocious daily fight against a formidable foe.
As U.S. commandos worked with their Somali counterparts, an array of American, Somali and other African military, diplomatic and aid officials expressed cautious optimism about the Somali government’s commitment to the fight but lingering doubts over its ability to hold the ground it retakes.
Now, in the wake of the attack on Jan. 20 in Galmudug state in central Somalia, Somali officials have asked for more U.S. firepower and renewed an appeal to Washington for more drone strikes and looser rules on when they can be carried out.
The request so far has received a cool reception from the Biden administration, which is wary of a deeper military commitment.
The attack came as the Somali military pressed its monthslong offensive, with several powerful local clan militias joining the fight against a terrorist group that has wreaked havoc across the Horn of Africa. The Somali government has been resupplying the clan militias with ammunition and other aid.
Last May, Somalia elected a new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who also held the role from 2012 to 2017. Since returning to office, he has declared an all-out war on al-shabab, vowing to limit their geographical reach and cut off their money. Intelligence officials estimate that the group has roughly 7,000 to 12,000 members and annual income — including from taxing or extorting civilians — of about $120 million.
The full-scale offensive started soon after Biden redeployed American trainers to Somalia. Those forces only advise and assist Somali soldiers and do not conduct unilateral counterterrorism operations like the one in January by members of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 that killed a senior Islamic State financier in northern Somalia.
Soldiers for the Danab, which means lightning in Somali, are recruited by employees of Bancroft Global Development, a Washington-based company that for years has worked with the State Department to train African Union troops and embed with them on military operations in Somalia.
Recruits who pass physical exams, literacy tests and security background checks are then sent to Baledogle, where they undergo three months of combat training with Bancroft instructors.
The State Department spends about $80 million a year to train, equip, feed, fuel and provide $300 monthly bonuses to the Danab force, embassy officials said.
Some critics say the current Somali operations are too dependent on Danab, to the detriment of the larger, and evidently harder, job of building up the regular Somali army.
In the field, U.S. special operations forces, including Army Green Berets and Navy SEAL commandos, work closely with individual Danab units, advising on mission planning, intelligence gathering and troubleshooting.
When the Danab go out on operations, the U.S. advisers remain behind at small operating bases but monitor live video feeds of the operations from surveillance drones and reconnaissance aircraft.
If the Somali commandos run into trouble, they first seek help from Somali units nearby or Ugandan helicopter gunships. If all else fails, they call for American backup.
If the situation is dire enough — with the enemy attacking or threatening to — the U.S. advisers can authorize a collective self-defense airstrike, as they did most recently on Feb. 21, American officials said. Turkey also conducts airstrikes in support of Somali partners, the officials said.
The United States is one of several countries advising and assisting the Somali government in its fight against al-shabab. In addition to the African Union, Turkey and Uganda, Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Eritrea and Egypt are also involved.