In Somalia, U.S. Escalates a Shadow War
By MARK MAZZETTI, JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and ERIC SCHMITTOCT. 16, 2016
Ugandan troops serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia in 2012. About 200 to 300 American Special Operations troops work with soldiers from African nations to carry out raids, senior American military officials said. Credit Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified a clandestine war in Somalia over the past year, using Special Operations troops, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies in an escalating campaign against Islamist militants in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
Hundreds of American troops now rotate through makeshift bases in Somalia, the largest military presence since the United States pulled out of the country after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993.
The Somalia campaign, as it is described by American and African officials and international monitors of the Somali conflict, is partly designed to avoid repeating that debacle, which led to the deaths of 18 American soldiers. But it carries enormous risks — including more American casualties, botched airstrikes that kill civilians and the potential for the United States to be drawn even more deeply into a troubled country that so far has stymied all efforts to fix it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/africa/obama-somalia-secret-war.html?_r=2
