African securityAbout 120 U.S. military advisors have been operating in Somalia since 2007
About 120 U.S. military advisors have operated in Somalia since 2007, and the Obama administration plans to expand its security assistance to help the country fight threats by the al-Qaeda-backed militant group, al-Shabaab. This figure is higher than what the Pentagon, in an announcement in January, referred to as the “handful” of advisors it had sent to Somalia in October 2013.
U.S. military advisors training // Source: shinganinews.com
U.S. military advisors have operated in Somalia since 2007, and the Obama administration plans to expand its security assistance to help the country fight threats by the al-Qaeda-backed militant group, al-Shabaab. Last year, President Barack Obama announced that Somalia could receive U.S. military assistance, and earlier in June Wendy Sherman, under secretary of state for political affairs, publicly acknowledged that a “small contingent of U.S. military personnel” including special operations forces had been present in Somalia for several years.
A State Department official noted that Sherman chose to disclose the previously classified information because, “in the past, our assessment of the security situation in Somalia informed our decision to err on the side of force protection concerns and not divulge their presence.” The situation has now changed, the official said. “We do not currently believe that acknowledging the U.S. presence will increase the already high threat to our personnel and citizens operating in Somalia.”
The comments made public by U.S. officials are the first official acknowledgement of a U.S. military presence in Somalia, dating back to the George W. Bush administration. TheChicago Tribune reports that an Obama administration official said that roughly 120 U.S. troops in Somalia have been operating as military trainers and advisors; this figure is higher than what the Pentagon, in an announcement in January, referred to as the “handful” of advisors it had sent to Somalia in October 2013. At the time, the announcement was considered to reveal the first assignment of American troops to Somalia since 1993, when two U.S. helicopters were shot down and eighteen American troops died in the “Black Hawk Down” disaster.
The U.S. presence in Somalia is part of a larger effort by the Somali National Army and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which has 22,000 troops in the country, to end the seven-year fight against al-Shabaab. “What you’ll see with this upcoming fiscal year is the beginning of engagement with the SNA proper,” said a U.S. defense official.
Obama is expected to nominate the first U.S. ambassador to Somalia since the 1990s. Sherman called the decision “a reflection both of our deepening relationship with the country and of our faith that better times are ahead.” The new ambassador would work out of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya and would travel to Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, as needed. “I would hope that in years ahead … that we will see a full presence both in Somalia and by the Somalis here in Washington,” Sherman said. “It’ll take some time, but we take this in a step-by-step approach.”
