U.S soldier killed in Somalia attack claimed by al Shabaab

A picture taken on October 20, 2017 in Mogadishu shows destroyed cars on the scene of a massive truck bomb attack claimed by al Shabaab.

(Image credit: Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP/Getty Images)

published 9 June 2018

A Friday attack in Jubaland, Somalia, that killed one U.S. soldier and injured four more was claimed Saturday by al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked extremist group that seeks to overthrow the Somali government. The American special operations forces were fighting with Somali and Kenyan troops to expel al Shabaab from villages in the area and "establish a permanent combat outpost."

President Trump tweeted his condolences later Friday:

The U.S. has about 500 troops in Somalia, a dramatic build-up over recent years. Read more about U.S. military activity in Somalia here at The Week.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.