President Donald Trump announced that U.S. military forces have successfully conducted precision airstrikes targeting a senior ISIS attack planner and other operatives hiding in Somalia.
The airstrikes, carried out in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, mark a major success in the U.S. counterterrorism mission in the region.
“This morning, I ordered precision military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia,” Trump said in a statement.
“These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies.”
According to the U.S. Africa Command, the strikes eliminated multiple ISIS-Somalia operatives and left no civilian casualties. “Protecting civilians remains a vital part of the command’s operations to promote a more secure and stable Africa,” the military’s statement noted.
President Trump highlighted the significance of the strike, taking aim at the previous administration’s approach. “Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!”
Trump warned terrorist groups with a powerful message: “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
U.S. Africa Command confirmed that the operation was part of ongoing efforts to eliminate terror threats and strengthen regional security. The strikes, which destroyed caves serving as terrorist hideouts, are expected to disrupt ISIS planning in the region.
I do find the shift in views around extra judicial killings, specifically for terrorist very very interesting.
The attack on the twin trade towers created a massive shift, but most interestingly it was most liberal US president that actually embedded the acceptance of mass extrajudicial killings. President Obama, what is profoundly interesting is that in 2012 he campaigned against the excess of the bush administration and promised the return of the rule of law…saying he…
“will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.”
What instead happened was Obama levered the US advantage in Drone and ISTAR and rightly or wrongly overturned the international norm on extrajudicial killings
“the president has routinized and normalized extrajudicial killing from the Oval Office, taking advantage of America’s temporary advantage in drone technology to wage a series of shadow wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Without the scrutiny of the legislature and the courts, and outside the public eye, Obama is authorizing murder on a weekly basis, with a discussion of the guilt or innocence of candidates for the “kill list” being resolved in secret on “Terror Tuesday” teleconferences with administration officials and intelligence officials.”
“Those strikes – by the United States’ own admission – are powered and driven by data. As former Director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, told an audience at John Hopkins University in 2014: “We kill people based on metadata.”
Essentially the western world now accepts mass extrajudicial killings as part of doing the business of essentially a forever war on terror. With HMG very much supporting these killings.
While at the same time condemning wider extrajudicial killings.
Only about 20 years before the HMG had essentially torn itself apart over the potential of the extrajudicial killings of three IRA terrorists in Operation Flavius…
Just to be very clear I’m not making any moral judgments here just pointing out the massively developing cultural shift in the west.
We can’t go out and arrest these evil vermin. I have no problem in using the only viable option available.
My only issue is there is no due process. I agree arresting them isn’t viable without unacceptable risk to uk service man lives.
However you could have a judge rule over the evidence to validate that they are actually going after criminals and not just hoping based on weak intel.
“and not just hoping based on weak intel.”
This is precisely why they don’t want to get judges involved.
After awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama went to bomb three more countries (Libya, Syria, and Yemen) than Bush.
It’s an interesting point you nake. The reality is the West’s development of the Internet, cheap travel for the masses and perliforation of cheap technology like phones means terrorists can setup in any country a conduct campaigns anywhere in the world.
It was much hard prior to these technologies becoming common place to run a global terrorists networks. So to dome degree it’s a symptom of interconnected world we live in.
As for going the root of arresting and putting these people on trial, in many cases the evidence that’s gathered, if nade public through a trial would put those who obtained it at risk and compromise other investigations. This isn’t always explained and we could perhaps do more to explain why a more normal route to justice can’t be used.
Personally I agree, I don’t have much issue with the actual act of killing a know terrorist who has actively organised the killing of British nationals, but I think there actually needs to be proper due process so it’s fixed within the framework of the judicial system of this nation. That means:
1) We formalise the fact we used targeted drone killings of terrorists, essentially formally legally admitting what everyone knowns we do
2) Place it in a legal context, so that a drone attack on an extra national threats is formalised in law with checks and balances.
3) a clear understanding of the rules of the killing of extra national threats how it can happen and why.
Essentially I personally thinks is perfectly legitimate for a western state to kill a person who is an active and live terror threat to that state if they cannot be stopped by other means because they are hiding in a failed state that cannot bring them to justice. But there needs to be a due legal process that has oversight and the person cannot only be a theoretical threat as in something like they are a potential threat that you scrap together from metadata. There needs to be actual evidence of immediate threat or that they have engaged in life threatening Terror attacks…that a judge can sign off on, essentially what the US has done in the past is essentially pretty much state sponsored murder in many cases…with no war or no clear judicial evidence chain or due process.
Fully agree it cant be public released information but there are plenty of trials that are done behind closed doors for national security reasons or just to protect witnesses.
No issues from me, another quick and effective action by the orange man! He is certainly showing how easy it is to change the perceived establishment rules, rules which we are told are virtually impossible to change! Like him or hate him, old Trump talks and the world listens!
Let’s see how his 25% tariffs on Canadian oil go tomorrow, I don’t think the Donald understands chemistry.
It’s 10% not 25%. Facts matter.
Not for the BBC crowd, it’s just orange man bad, no matter what.
The crude oil that Canada exports to the US comes from Western Canada, primarily from the province of Alberta. This oil is shipped by pipeline to the US’s Gulf Coast refineries where it is processed into oil products and then exported at a large profit. The pipeline that sends this oil to the Gulf Coast also sends oil to the refineries in eastern Canada that supply the more populated portions of Eastern Canada with oil products, to include petrol. This pipeline goes through northern US states in the Midwest and the US can stop any transmission to eastern Canada if it so wishes. Canada is a leftist net zero state and has refused Alberta permission to build pipelines that would allow it to export its crude to nations other than the US. And pipelines take years to complete.
So let’s see how the tariffs go tomorrow. I think that, as usual, you have no idea what you are talking about but your knee jerk TSD kicks in and your ignorance is displayed for all to see.
You need to go back to your creche, pick up your crayons and learn some commerce and economic facts. Imposing high tariffs on imports is economic illiteracy, it will push up domestic inflation and make everyday products domestically more expensive, not that the billionaire tech bros and oligarchs that now run your country will care. It doesn’t surprise me that your slavish devotion to MAGA false narratives or your blind allegiance to a multiple bankrupt, sex offender felon prevents you from understanding that.
Not quite, in the short term yes whilst no alternative is available. But internal markets adapt and alternate product enter the supply chain. EU has used tarrifs on China on several occasions to deny EU citizen access to cheaper Chinese goods.
Posse, right on!! However Maga is not smart enough to understand your points. Maga believes old Don-old because he is a religious figure – the Orange messiah . Facebook, Twitter/X, Fox News, Murdoch Media Empire will bend any thing to ensure old Donnie is Be-LIE-ved.
Trump doesn’t seem to understand that it’s the importers that pays the tarrifs not the exporter, so the US firm paying it. All this does is hit US firms and consumers with higher prices.
So playing devil’s advocate EU putting tarrifs on Chinese goods is denying Europeans cheaper gogoodsforcing tgem to buy EU products at higher prices.
You don’t seem to understand that the effect of these tariffs means that the US will just import from elsewhere (or buy homemade products) rather than pay import tariffs on Canadian products, and the people that mainly lose are the Canadian exporters.
The US economy is sufficiently big and diverse enough to absorb tariff costs (most US companies could easily find a US replacement for a Canadian product), but the Canadian economy is too small for Canadian firms and consumers to find alternatives to US produced products.
It would seem Jim that Trumps correct, Canada has postponed their response with a similar tariff and deploying 10000 troops to the order to reduce the movement of fentanyl. Trump yet again wins in the bargain stakes.
There’s got to be some blatant signalling to certain “others” here too that his six shooter is in his holster and he’s going to use it!
On a more serious note, I think his hair colour is a less orange now, a more grey yellow, but i like your “orange man” tag!
‘Orange’ has never related to his hair, it’s that god awful pancake makeup that he wears.
Agree. I have no issues with using Reaper and such to kill terrorists out to kill westerners.
The issues arrive when they bomb wedding processions and such instead.
When covert assets are on the ground the risk of this can be lowered, but lives are at risk.
It’s Interesting how quiet Iran have been since Trump cane back. No more Mr Nice Guy.
Indeed.. personally think that if a state is going to kill a person then there most be a rock solid due process, that is based on a legal framework of understanding and is open to scrutiny,…what the US has done is essentially kill people on metadata…in the crudest sense it means they are killing people on the risk they may be a risk…not on sold evidence of what they have done or are planning to do…and personally I think if a state is going to essentially execute a person it should be done under some rule of law with evidence and scrutiny.
Morning mate.
Yes, I read your piece on this further up.
All sensible.
Evidence wise it would have to be in some sort of closed session, as the way this targeting happens is slap bang in 5 Eyes intell community territory.
Even that, and placing it in law, wouldn’t please everybody. I sometimes peruse Drone Wars UK and I’m amused at their obvious bias. Anti Americanism, anti western views. Like Declassified UK, they’re just another branch of CND, making sure it’s the western democracies who do the disarming first, not Russia, China, and all the rest.
It’s walking a tightrope to please everyone.
Indeed, the evidence would be a security issue, so you not talking completely open, but we have robust judicial systems that are essentially closed, with only the outcome and not the detail open to public scrutiny. I would be happy with that as I do trust our checks and balances as long as they are in place and used.
I bet if Biden had done something similar Trump and MAGA would have accused him of trying to start another war, sticking Smerica’s nose in where it’s none of its business.
But hey Ho, a few more Deceased ISIS is never a bad thing.
If ISIS in Somalia needed hitting, it would have happened before now. Trump, as he always does, stroking off in public over an easy score. Captain “bone spurs” strikes again. Beyond pathetic.
Drop bombs on brown people. They all come here. The new Displacement Theory.
What concerns me here is that Chump may be as much a fantaloon on this as he is on everything else.
The only voices he listens to are the ones in his head, and he has systematically sought to remove competence amongst his circle of advisers.
There’s nothing really new about this. The US has been striking terrorist camps/sites and infrastructure since Reagan was in The White House. The only difference now is that this time, there’s an insecure narcissist in the White House, politicising it, and trying to claim all the credit for it just a day after disrespecting the crew members of the Blackhawk helicopter that was involved in the Washington air tragedy.
A bit rich coming from President bone spurs.
You mean Like….
Advisor: “Let’s kill some Somalis, and then claim we’ve done something important that Biden wasn’t doing”
POTUS: “Do you think they’ll believe us?”
Advisor: “ are you kidding me your revered orangeness? Those cretins who voted for you will believe any goddamn thing you tell ‘em!”
POTUS: “ what a bigly great idea, I’m obviously a genius to have thought of it…”
Advisor: “…er, yes sir”
The perpetual increase in research and development in the field of weapons, is and largely has been maintained and increased by a constant drip feed of fear by various governments and their advisers. For adviser’s read arms manufacturers and their pressure groups.
Every now and then we get government A dripping a story through the media that ‘we’ are falling behind the enemy, and may not be able to defend ourselves in the event of an attack.
A very famous British politician once said, “If we can plan for war, we can plan for peace.”
There are those here that would say that is folly, bordering on national suicide, but if we stop and think, new development simply results in the other side having to do the same on order to ‘keep up’.
Mistakes are made and billions spent by none other than the taxpayers of each country and, unless and until a big war breaks out, we will never know if ‘our’ defence and attack weapons were better than the other side.
Meanwhile of course, the general population of each country has to continually dig deep in their pockets to pay for weapons we are told we must have, but have no proof we need them.
If any proof of the folly we find ourselves in, quite some many years ago BBC, in the days before the internet, broadcast a programme using ex military and government and industry experts on the subject of international warfare breaking out again, this time with lots and lots of nuclear weapons to everyones disposal.
It very quickly became apparent that once the big warheads had been launched, the chaps in the war room were having to work out which countries to lob their dwindling nuclear weapons at. The reason was only to obvious, as discussed by one of the experts.
“It’s no point in chucking scarce nuclear weapons at countries who, even though they might be our enemies, don’t have nuclear weapons.
They have to be used sparingly and with careful planning.
In such a horrifying war, you can’t get some factories to knock out a few hundred more, there isn’t the time, and the factories may become targets themselves. (WWII?)
The only people to gain from the fear/perceived threat of war are the rapacious arms manufacturers and dealers, and their shareholders. I wonder how many politicians have big shares in the arms race.
For anyone reading this who thinks I am mad, take a look at Failsafe, with Henry Fonder as the President who having failed to call back B 52 bombers from a false alarm attack on the Soviet Union, is faced with having to drop one on Washington to prevent the Soviet leaders from launching a full scale reprisal.
There is another film recently shown on UK TV, the name escapes me, but that one was even more terrible and again started from a human error.
If we are to continue as a race, we must stop the madness of more and more and yet more development.
I am very sorry. For Fonder read Fonda.
I’m quite outraged at all these backward hell hole countries being f¥€£ed up by our idiocracies, it can only breed contempt for our values and way of life.
The next Che, Osama or Jackel becoming active is only a matter of time.
If you are furious at every injustice then you are my friend.
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