US air strike kills 30 al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia

 

File photo of al-Shabaab fighters. BBC/AFP.

An airstrike targeting the al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia has left thirty of their fighters dead. BBC. The attack occurred in the town of Galcad, which has been the sight of a battle between the terror group and Somali forces. The air strike turned the tide of the battle where the Somali army was battling over 100 al-Shabaab fighters. Earlier in the battle the militants had killed seven Somali soldiers. Three al-Shabaab vehicles were also destroyed in the air raid. 

My Comment:

I occasionally like to post about Somalia because America is fairly involved in the war there. It gets almost zero attention due to the Ukraine war sucking up almost all media attention. But the conflict is fairly important because al-Shabaab is one of the last remaining terror groups that regularly launches major attacks. 

Al-Shabaab is one of the largest and last remaining major affiliates of al-Qaeda and is one of the last ones that can actually pull off major attacks. They aren't a global threat like ISIS and core al-Qaeda were back in the day but they are a regional as their have hit targets outside of Somali, including Kenya.  

This incident looks like we bailed out a group of Somali soldiers that had bit off more than they could chew. The terrorists were counter-attacking them as they were trying to take the down from al-Shabaab. They had to be helped by our airstrikes because it seems like they were outgunned and outnumbered. It seems like the airstrikes were able to break the back of the al-Shabaab militants and won the war for the Somali soldiers.

Of course, one does wonder why we are involved in Somalia. Al-Shabaab is a regional threat but they aren't a threat to our allies in Europe and are certainly not a threat to the United States at this point. They could be some day but I don't see that happening anytime soon. The conditions that made al-Qaeda and ISIS such big threats aren't there in Somalia. There isn't a huge tax base to gain funds and there aren't huge stockpiles of weapons just lying around in Somalia, at least compared to Iraq and Syria. 

Islamic terrorism is not anywhere near as relevant as it used to be. ISIS peaked in 2015 and was largely destroyed since then and al-Qaeda hasn't been relevant for a long time outside of their affiliates. The defeat of ISIS demoralized Islamic militants everywhere and without successful attacks there isn't really any good way for them to recruit new fighters. Al-Shabaab is one of the last groups that are doing much of anything these days.