WASHINGTON: A September US airstrike in Somalia killed local militia forces and not Al-Shabab militants as the Pentagon had initially believed, the US military acknowledged in a draft statement obtained by Reuters on Thursday.
The Sept. 28 strike in Somalia’s Galkayo area killed 10 fighters and wounded three, the statement said. No civilian casualties were caused by the strike, it said.
Somalia’s government had asked the United States to explain the strike, which it said had been conducted against forces of the semi-autonomous, northern region of Galmudug.
The errant strike illustrated the perils of Washington’s efforts to battle Al-Shabab, an Al-Qaeda-aligned group, by working with armed Somali factions that are often feuding.
Shabab has been responsible for numerous attacks, including the September 2013 siege of Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall that left at least 67 dead.
The day after the Sept. 28 US strike in Somalia, officials in Galmudug accused a rival region, Puntland, of duping the United States into believing members of its security forces were in fact rebels.
An Al-Shabab spokesman told Reuters at the time it did not have any fighters in the area of the strike.
The draft statement by the US military’s Africa Command said the air strike was carried out at the request of Puntland Security Forces “and our own assessment of the situation.”
A PSF-led patrol had come under attack by a group of armed fighters and in response, “the US conducted a self-defense strike to neutralize the threat, killing 10 armed fighters and wounding three others,” the statement said.
A review of the strike, which began Oct. 4, determined that “The armed fighters were initially believed to be Al-Shabab but with further review it was determined they were local militia forces,” it said.
“Operating under legal authorities, US forces lawfully utilized self-defense to support the PSF in response to hostile actions conducted by the armed group against a partnered force,” the review concluded. “No US forces were killed or injured as a result of this incident.”
US airstrike in Somalia killed local militia, not Al-Shabab
US airstrike in Somalia killed local militia, not Al-Shabab
Trump, Zelensky speak before Ukraine-US talks in Geneva
- Zelensky wrote on social media that he had spoken with Trump
- “Our teams work intensively and I thanked them for all their work and for their active involvement in the negotiations and the efforts to end the war”
KYIV: US President Donald Trump spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a fresh round of talks Thursday aimed at ending Russia’s invasion, both sides said on Wednesday.
A White House official gave AFP no further details about the call, which came a day before Ukrainian and US envoys were to meet, and ahead of new trilateral talks with Russia expected in early March.
But Zelensky wrote on social media that he had spoken with Trump, and that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were on the call.
“Our teams work intensively and I thanked them for all their work and for their active involvement in the negotiations and the efforts to end the war,” he added.
According to Ukrainian presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn, the conversation “lasted about 30 minutes.”
Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov will meet Witkoff and Kushner in Geneva on Thursday, Kyiv announced.
Russian state news agency Tass later said that the Kremlin’s economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also plans to be in the city.
“Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues,” it cited an unnamed source as saying.
The meetings are the latest round of negotiations spearheaded by Trump that so far have failed to make meaningful progress on ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Washington is pushing to bring an end to the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and destroyed swathes of territory, particularly in eastern and southern Ukraine.
- Preparatory talks -
Zelensky said his call with Trump “discussed the issues that our representatives will address tomorrow in Geneva during the bilateral meeting, as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March.”
“We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps. This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader has already said that a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should take place to resolve the most difficult issues in the talks.
The talks, based on an American plan unveiled at the end of last year, are deadlocked primarily on the fate of the Donbas, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicenter of the fighting.
Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table.
But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
