U.S. forces fighting in Africa dealt a deadly blow to al-Shabaab on Sunday in an airstrike that took out five terrorists and their vehicle.
The airstrike took place near El Burr in central Somalia. The strike was made possible through the continued cooperation between the Federal Government of Somalia and the U.S. military.
According to officials from the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the strike is part of the larger strategy on the continent to seek out and destroy Islamic terrorist groups that pose a threat to the West. Among those groups are al-Shabaab, Boko Hara, and ISIS-West Africa.
“U.S. forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect U.S. citizens and to disable terrorist threats,” AFRICOM officials said in a press release.
A battle damage assessment of the strike determined that no civilians were killed or wounded in the airstrike.
This airstrike comes just 12 days after another airstrike against al-Shabaab killed two terrorists and wounded three others nears Mubaraak, Somalia. Another strike on March 28, 2018, killed a high-level al-Qaeda leader in Libya. The increased tempo of operations conducted in Africa may indicate the expansion of U.S. anti-terror missions in the region.