A US-trained Somali government force killed dozens of civilians during an attack on a village in southern Somalia that started Tuesday night and continued until Wednesday morning, according to Somali media reports.
According to the Somali Guardian, the attack targeted the village of Jambaluul, about 40 kilometers west of Mogadishu, and was launched after the arrival of the Alpha Group, a special operations branch of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency that has received training from the US.
Garowe Online reported similar details, though it said the attack was conducted by the Danab, a special operations force of the Somali military that is armed and trained by the US. Both reports said that more than 30 civilians were killed and that the village was flattened by the attack, which involved artillery fire.
The Somali government said the attack was a “special operation” against al-Shabaab fighters, but residents strongly denied that there were militants in the area. According to Garowe, doctors at a hospital in the nearby town of Afgoye said more than 100 wounded civilians arrived and that some of them were transferred to Mogadishu.
The raid came less than a month after a suspected US airstrike killed 12 civilians, including eight children, in an attack on a village in the southern Jubaland province. The US has conducted a record number of airstrikes in Somalia this year, both against al-Shabaab in southern and central Somalia and against the ISIS affiliate in the northeastern Puntland region, where the US backs local forces.