Trump says he ordered air strikes on Islamic State group in Somalia

Donald Trump says he ordered army air strikes on a senior assault planner and others from the Islamic State (IS) group in Somalia.

“These killers, who we discovered hiding in caves, threatened the USA and our Allies,” Trump posted on social media.

“The strikes destroyed the caves they stay in, and killed many terrorists with out, in any means, harming civilians.”

The BBC couldn’t instantly independently confirm the experiences.

Trump didn’t identify any of the folks focused in strikes.

The president ended his put up with: “The message to ISIS and all others who would assault People is that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”

In a press release, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned “our preliminary evaluation is that a number of operatives had been killed within the airstrikes and no civilians had been harmed”.

Hegseth mentioned the strikes “additional degrade” the power of IS “to plot and conduct terrorist assaults” and “sends a transparent sign that the USA at all times stands prepared to seek out and remove terrorists”.

He mentioned the strikes had been carried out within the Golis mountains, in northern Somalia.

Trump additionally took a swipe on the former administration, stating the US army had focused this explicit IS planner for years, however accused Joe Biden “and his cronies” of not performing rapidly sufficient “to get the job finished. I did!”

US forces killed IS chief, Bilal al-Sudani, and 10 of his operatives in a distant mountainous collapse northern Somalia in 2023, in an operation ordered by Biden.

IS rose to worldwide prominence within the 2010s, significantly in Syria and Iraq, however now its presence is principally restricted to components of Africa.

The Somali department of IS was fashioned in 2015 by a bunch of defectors from the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab group – the most important jihadist group in Somalia.

IS in Somalia is infamous for extorting locals and primarily carries out small-scale, sporadic assaults, according to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.