CIA officer is killed in Somalia
WASHINGTON >> A veteran CIA officer was killed in combat in Somalia in recent days, according to current and former U.S. officials, a death that is likely to reignite debate over U.S. counterterrorism operations in Africa.
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 identity of the officer remained classified, and the circumstances of the killing were ambiguous. It was unclear whether the officer was killed in a counterterrorism raid or was the victim of an enemy attack, former U. S. officials said. The CIA declined to comment.
The death will lead to another star being added to the wall in the CIA’s lobby, where it memorializes its fallen. The past 20 years have placed a heavy burden on the agency, with dozens of stars bringing the total to 135.
Compared with the U. S. military, the deaths of CIA officers in combat is a relatively rare occurrence. Still, paramilitary work is the most dangerous task at the agency, and members of the Special Activities Center carry out missions as risky as those of Delta Force or SEAL Team 6.
The death of the CIA paramilitary officer comes as a draft order is circulating at the Pentagon under which virtually all of the more than 700 U.S. military forces in Somalia conducting training and counterterrorism missions would depart by the time that President Donald Trump leaves office in January.
Al- Shabab, the al- Qaida-affiliated terror group based in Somalia, remains a deadly threat and claimed responsibility this week for killing a group of U. S.trained Somali soldiers. No Americans were killed in that attack, a military official said.
Inside the CIA, Somalia has long been considered a particularly dangerous war zone. Senior intelligence officials have debated whether counterterrorism operations there are worth the risk to American lives. Some in the agency believe that al- Shabab is at worst a regional threat to Africa and to U. S. interests there but not beyond the region.
But other counterterrorism experts believe that if left unchecked, al- Shabab could emerge as the same kind of global threat as the Islamic State and al- Qaida have been. Al- Shabab issued new threats against Americans in East Africa and in the United States this year.