President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Saturday that a series of U.S. military strikes targeted a senior ISIS attack planner in Somalia.
“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians. 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 said. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
The senior ISIS member was not named by Trump in his post on TruthSocial. The airstrikes took place in the Golis mountains in the northern part of the east African nation.
Trump also took a swipe at his former President Joe Biden “and his cronies” for not acting “quickly enough to get the job done. I did!” It was on Biden’s watch in 2023 when U.S. forces killed ISIS leader Bilal al-Sudani during a series of strikes in Somalia. In May 2024, Biden’s Pentagon killed three ISIS militants in a separate strike.
The recently confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also said that the Somali government was involved in the planning of the attack.
An initial assessment by the Pentagon indicated that “multiple” operatives were killed. The Pentagon said is assesses no civilians were harmed in the strikes.
Hegseth went on to say that the operation would “further degrade” the Islamic State’s ability “to plot and conduct terrorist attacks” while sending “a clear signal that the United States always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists.”
U.S. military officials have warned that IS cells have received increasing direction from the group’s leadership that relocated to northern Somalia. That has included how to kidnap Westerners for ransom, how to learn better military tactics, how to hide from drones and how to building their own small quadcopters.
A U.S. military airstrike in Somalia last May targeted IS militants and killed three, according to U.S. Africa Command.
The number of IS militants in the country are estimated to be in the hundreds, mostly scattered in the Cal Miskaat mountains in Puntland’s Bari region, according to the International Crisis Group.
The group sprang up in Somalia in 2015 as defectors from al-Shabab, which was associated with al-Qaeda.
In an interview with The Washington Post this week, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud stressed the importance of the Trump administration’s help in defeating terrorism.
“We are requesting that the United States increase the number so that we can eliminate al-Shabab while President Trump is in office... We need support. President Trump is a man of action. He does what he says. We hope that he will look at Somalia,” the president said.
