Saturday, February 25, 2012

Covert U.S. Attacks in Somalia

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a not-for-profit organization based at City University, London, released on 22 February 2012 a report on U.S. military strikes since 2007. Drawing on open source reporting from a variety of organizations, it alleged that there have been as many as 21 U.S. military strikes in Somalia since 2007, most of them aimed at al-Shabaab. Not all of the alleged strikes are well documented. The report is titled the Covert Drone War.

The Bureau released at the same time a longer list of alleged U.S. and United Kingdom military strikes in Somalia dating back to 2001. Most of them are based on journalistic accounts and a few are single sourced. Called Covert Drone War - the Data, this is the most comprehensive account to date of reported strikes inside Somalia by U.S. and UK military forces.