By MISS Z.
On September 11, 2001, two buildings of the World Trade Center in New York, the United States, were hit and collapsed by aircraft hijacked by terrorists, and at the same time, there was a terrorist attack on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., where nearly 3,000 people were killed.
After the 9/11 incident, the United States began a large-scale war on terror, and bin Laden, as the leader of a global terrorist organization, was listed by the United States as the number one suspect in the terrorist attack. Despite the Taliban's declaration that os-jain Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11, then-U.S. President George Walker Bush took action against Afghanistan, where the U.S. passed the U.S. Patriot Act, and the military invaded Afghanistan in preparation for the elimination of terrorist bases.
The Bush administration also suspected that Somalia provided support and shelter to terrorists, gradually turning the war on terror from light to darkness, waging a "shadow war" and controlling the Somali regime with the Ethiopian army.
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In January 2021, the United States launched a surprise attack on Somalia, sending a number of precision guided missile bombing fighters to bomb the Sahavin region of Somalia, where Al-Shabaab is located, and the situation in the United States was also extremely chaotic.
According to media reports, the United States said that the attack on Somalia was caused by the US bombing of Al-Shabaab often attacked the US patrol in Somalia and the US army base in Somalia, and under the attack of a large number of Al-Shabaab, the US military suffered casualties.
During the administration of former US President Trump, more than 60 bomb attacks on Somalia were carried out in 2019, and in the first four months of 2020, Somalia suffered as many as 39 air raids.
Although there were no specific casualties, the US military blew up two Somali Al-Shabaab barracks and a secret ammunition depot, and the explosion at the scene was tragic and the smoke could not be dissipated for a long time. Colonel Kahns, the U.S. African Forces Command, said the U.S. military conducted two powerful airstrikes on Somalia in a row to warn al-Shabaab militants not to attack U.S. forces or pay a heavy price. Of course, the United States has achieved its goal in this bombing operation, and the heavy bombing has made the Somali Al-Shabaab feel a strong shock.
When the United States launched a war against Somalia when the domestic situation was unstable, the international community saw that in addition to speculating whether the United States was doing this to divert domestic pressure, it was also worried that the US military would directly provoke the war above the international community. At that time, the Trump administration said that the bad situation in Somalia made the United States doubt whether the security of the US military could be guaranteed, so the US military had a plan to withdraw from Somalia and redeploy to a relatively safe country nearby. Since then, 700 of the U.S. strikes in Somalia have been transferred to Kenya and Djibouti.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" >2, "Black Hawk Down" Shadow War</h1>
In 1993, the United States made intelligence mistakes, when performing a mission in Somalia, two "Black Hawk" helicopters were shot down by RPGs, and the US troops were besieged by Somalis in Mogadishu, the whole process lasted 15 hours, the US troops killed 19 people, wounded more than 70 people, until the Pakistani peacekeeping forces came to cover and then safely withdrawn. Since the end of the "Black Hawk Down" incident, the U.S. government has been reluctant to send troops to Somalia.
After the 9/11 incident, the US government began a global anti-terrorist operation, and the war on terror gradually changed from light to dark. The United States has changed from a "hammer" strategy to a "scalpel" strike to deal with terrorist organizations, through multilateral action, multi-pronged search and collection of terrorist intelligence information, and when necessary, the dispatch of drones and special forces, "shadow war" has come from. This is one of the reasons why the United States sent troops to Somalia many years later.
The "Black Hawk Down" incident secretly left the US military in Somalia hiding in the embassy at the Mogadishu airport, which has no windows like a prison. In the aftermath of the fierce battle of "Black Hawk Down", the REMAINing US troops rarely appear outside, according to relevant sources, when the US military trains paramilitary forces at night, gunshots will appear in the Air of Somalia. After the United States withdrew more than 700 people from Somalia, fewer than 100 U.S. intelligence workers were left in Somalia, including secret agents and diplomats.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" > Third, the Biden administration "wandered" in Somalia</h1>
The New York Times reported that an explosion in November 2020 killed three Somalis and one American, a CIA paramilitary expert and former U.S. Navy SEALs Michael Goodbo. He died 17 days after being seriously injured in an explosion and taken to a German hospital, at the age of 54, one of the few casualties in years of shadow wars in the United States.
The United States invested more in the war on terror in Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of soldiers were sent and eventually left in chaos. For Somalia, the United States did not send troops on a large scale, but implemented a "shadow strategy", the US military and local private contractors worked with fighters to develop espionage and special operations raids, while preparing for drone attacks. Initially the United States was trying to hunt down terrorist base elements in Somalia, but its efforts to combat Al-Shabaab's establishment of Somali security forces were hampered by the failure to cooperate with the corrupt local government.
After the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, somalis feared that the United States would leave them behind. The Biden administration insists on denying the failure of the Somali operation, and while there are many shortcomings, the United States is well aware of it and will introduce new policies for Somalia in the coming weeks. Some incumbents believe the Trump administration's withdrawal of the 700 military initiative in January was wrong, complicating the situation in Somalia.
A scene like the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, even if the United States believes that it is a correct decision that is in line with the U.S. plan, does not mean that the United States has achieved its goal in counterterrorism or Afghanistan. Therefore, in the treatment of Somalia, some experts have analyzed that it is necessary to think deeply about the new US strategy for Somalia, which should include a solution to the political problems between the United States and Al-Shabaab, otherwise it will be the beginning of a new war.
About author: Post-95 accountant sister, media person, freelance writer.