Acting Defense Secretary makes first unannounced visit to Somalia amid reports of major troop cuts

Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller made an unannounced visit to Somalia Friday, the first by an American defense secretary and the last stop in a four country swing on his first trip abroad since being installed as part of President Donald Trump’s post-election purge of top Pentagon officials.

Miller was only on the ground in the capital Mogadishu for a few hours, meeting with some of the US troops deployed there after traveling from the US military facility Camp Lemonnier in neighboring Djibouti.
While Pentagon officials say the purpose of the trip is to meet with troops during the Thanksgiving holiday, it comes amid reports that the Trump administration plans to remove nearly all of the roughly 700 US troops currently deployed in support of the counterterrorism campaign in Somalia, a drawdown that would be just the latest in a series of major military moves and troop withdrawals due to take place just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes the oath of office in January.

US troops in Somalia primarily train and advise local Somali forces as they battle al Qaeda’s largest affiliate Al-Shabaab.
The US military also carries out airstrikes against Al-Shabaab and the local ISIS affiliate in the country, killing a top al Shabaab leader in a targeted strike in September.
The Pentagon has yet to officially announce troop cuts in Somalia but defense officials tell CNN that major reductions are expected to take place in the coming days.

The proposed reduction in US support to the counterterrorism campaign in Somalia comes as the Pentagon Inspector General warned Wednesday that Somali forces are incapable of confronting the threat without US support.
“Despite many years of sustained Somali, US, and international counterterrorism pressure, the terrorist threat in East Africa is not degraded: Al-Shabaab retains freedom of movement in many parts of southern Somalia and has demonstrated an ability and intent to attack outside of the country, including targeting US interests,” the report said.
“Somalia’s security forces are unable to contain the threat from Al-Shabaab and ISIS-Somalia, which poses a smaller but still potent threat, without significant international support,” it added.

And Somalia remains violent. On Wednesday CNN reported that a CIA officer was killed in Somalia earlier this month.
Miller has said that one of his primary objectives for the Defense Department is to finish the fight against al Qaeda, a mission made more challenging by the continued presence of Al-Shabaab, the terror group’s largest affiliate, particularly with a reduced US military effort.
The report also said that the focus of the US military’s training effort in Somalia, the Danab Brigade, a light infantry force that has spearheaded the fight against Al-Shabaab, currently consists of only 945 soldiers, well below its authorized strength of 3,000. Pulling US forces from Somalia is bound to make training that unit even more difficult if not impossible.
The Trump administration pledged to train the Danab army in 2017 during an international conference in London.
While Al-Shabaab has been driven from Somalia’s major cities and towns, the group still has much influence in southern Somalia, carries out terrorist attacks in Mogadishu and commands some 5,000-10,000 fighters.

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