Trump orders all U.S. troops out of Somalia
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump, continuing his endof-term troop withdrawals from conflicts 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. It was not immediately clear whether other parts of the U.S. presence in Somalia — such as CIA officers, the ambassador and other State Department diplomats who are based at a heavily fortified bunker at the airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital — will withdraw from Somali territory along with the military.
The withdrawal from Somalia followed Trump’s orders to reduce the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reflected the president’s long-standing desire to end long-running military engagements against Islamist insurgencies in failed and fragile countries in Africa and the Middle East, a grinding mission that has spread since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Pentagon pledged that efforts to safeguard American interests would continue.
“The U.S. is not withdrawing or disengaging from Africa,” it said in a statement. “We remain committed to our African partners and enduring support through a whole- of-government approach.”
The United States will retain the ability to conduct counterterrorism operations in Somalia, especially drone strikes, 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 death already has rekindled debate over American intelligence’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 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 underway.