Somalia: The Hidden US War in Somalia; Civilian Casualties from Air Strikes in Lower Shabelle

An Amnesty International report published in March 2019. Since April 2017, the United States of America (USA) has dramatically increased the number of air strikes – from manned aircraft and unmanned drones – it has launched in Somalia, tripling the annual rate of attacks and, in 2018, outpacing US strikes in Libya and Yemen combined. Despite this escalation, the US government claims that it has not killed any civilians in Somalia during this period. In this report, Amnesty International provides credible evidence to the contrary. The report investigates five incidents in Lower Shabelle, Somalia, in which 14 civilians were killed and eight injured. It provides credible evidence that US air strikes were responsible for four of these incidents and that the fifth was most plausibly caused by a US air strike.