Washington (Somalia Today) — The United States should end its escalating military campaign in Somalia because neither Al-Shabaab nor the Islamic State affiliate in the country poses a significant threat to the American homeland, a Washington-based think tank has said.
Defense Priorities said years of American air strikes, troop deployments and military support had failed to defeat the armed groups, which remain focused primarily on local and regional conflicts.
“The U.S. has very few interests in Somalia, security or otherwise,” William Walldorf, a senior fellow at the think tank, wrote in the report released Tuesday.
The report said Al-Shabaab and Islamic State-Somalia had neither demonstrated the capacity nor the intention to carry out a major attack inside the United States.
It argued that continued US involvement could instead strengthen the groups’ propaganda, deepen Washington’s role in Somalia’s conflict and divert military resources from more important American security priorities.
The findings challenge the central justification used by US military commanders, who say operations in Somalia are necessary to prevent jihadist organisations from developing the ability to attack Americans at home and abroad.
US Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, says its strikes are conducted in coordination with Somalia’s federal government and are intended to weaken Al-Shabaab and Islamic State-Somalia while supporting Somali forces on the ground.
Record air campaign
The report comes as the United States conducts air strikes in Somalia at an unprecedented rate.
AFRICOM has announced roughly 80 strikes during the first seven months of 2026, following about 125 operations last year — already the most intensive period of American bombing since operations in the country began.
The increase followed a decision by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to give commanders greater authority to approve strikes without seeking permission from senior officials in Washington for each operation.
Most of the attacks have targeted Al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia or Islamic State fighters hiding in the mountainous Bari region of Puntland.
AFRICOM says the operations provide Somali forces with an advantage against armed groups and help disrupt attacks against the Somali government, US personnel and American interests.
But the effect of the bombing campaign remains disputed.
Al-Shabaab launched a major counteroffensive in 2025, recapturing towns and rural territory that government forces and allied clan militias had seized during operations in 2022 and 2023.
Somali forces have since strengthened their positions around Mogadishu and recovered some strategic locations, but large parts of central and southern Somalia remain contested.
The International Crisis Group said in a June report that the conflict had again reached an impasse, with neither the government nor Al-Shabaab appearing capable of achieving a decisive military victory.
Al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda, has fought Somalia’s internationally backed government for nearly two decades. It continues to control or influence extensive rural areas and regularly carries out bombings and armed assaults in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
Islamic State-Somalia is considerably smaller but has developed an important role within the global Islamic State network, particularly in fundraising and the movement of foreign fighters.
Disputed threat
US military commanders have increasingly warned that Africa has become central to the activities of international jihadist organisations.
“The epicentre of global terrorism is in Africa. ISIS leadership is African; Al-Qaida’s economic engine is in Africa,” AFRICOM commander General Dagvin Anderson told the US Senate in May.
Defense Priorities rejected that assessment, arguing that the presence of militant groups in Somalia did not automatically mean they represented a direct threat to the United States.
The debate has also divided senior US officials in previous administrations.
Former defense secretary Mark Esper wrote in his 2022 memoir that AFRICOM resisted his efforts to reduce the American presence in Somalia after he concluded that the danger Al-Shabaab poses to the United States was minimal.
“Such an assessment would threaten their resources,” Esper wrote.
President Donald Trump ordered about 700 US troops to leave Somalia during the final weeks of his first term.
Former President Joe Biden reversed the withdrawal in 2022 and returned around 450 troops to Somalia to train, advise and assist government forces. Those troops have remained in the country since Trump returned to office.
The overall cost of the mission remains unclear because the Pentagon does not publish a comprehensive account.
However, Defense Priorities estimated that US operations had probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars and said the “costs of keeping troops in place are not worth it.”
It urged Trump to gradually halt the air campaign, establish a timetable for withdrawing troops, and transfer greater responsibility to Somalia’s neighbours and other regional actors.
Countries in the Horn of Africa have far more at stake in Somalia’s stability than the United States, the report said, and should take the lead in finding a political and security settlement.
