Today, Explained - Trump’s secret war

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

America's longest ongoing conflict isn't with Iran. It's in Somalia. But almost no one is talking about it. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Officers from Somalia's security agencies perform prayers on top of their jeeps at a security checkpoint in the outskirts of Mogadishu. Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The president's half-rally, half-national address on the 4th of July was evacuated, delayed, but eventually delivered just before the clock struck 5th of July. He talked about communism so much it felt like 1954 out there on the National Mall. America will never be a communist country. Won't happen. He talked at length about some of the nation's past military glories, and he spoke briefly about some of his recent interventions. We got a recent victory by sinking the entire Iranian Navy 159 ships.

to the bottom of the sea, all done in just a moment's time. He did not mention that he still hasn't really managed to end his war in Iran. You look at Iran, we wiped it out. And the president made zero mention of the nation's longest ongoing military intervention. In fact, he seldom talks about it. A few people in Washington do. But President Trump has been quietly ratcheting up airstrikes in Somalia, so we are going to talk about that on Today Explain from Vox.

This is today explained. If you want to hear more about what's going on in Somalia, it's best to head to Somalia, so we reached out to journalist Mohamed Gabobe in Mogadishu. Somalia, as you know, has been plagued two decades by an ongoing Islamist insurgency. Al-Shabaab was formed in 2002 and came to prominence in 2006.

Their targets, citizens, government officials, and diplomats in southern and central Somalia. But the conflict in Somalia not just between the government and the insurgents. It also includes international actors, namely the United States of America. The United States has at least 500 soldiers in this country, but it's trained and paid for Somali troops to form the Danube Unit or Lightning Force. In addition to training, U.S. troops provide critical support to the Somali troops,

including surveillance from overhead drones and air strikes. The U.S. has been carrying out airstrikes in Somali for two decades, and it's heightened, or I should say even worse, the Trump administration. So far, there's been 196 air strikes in Somalia since the Trump administration took the helms of the White House. This is compared to in 219 during his first term. So in essence, what you have is a very upscale and escalating U.S. air war in Somalia at the moment. And who's being attacked? Who's dying? The insurgents are being attacked, as they say. But unfortunately, civilians are getting

caught up in the mist in these air strikes. The reason being is oftentimes, in a place like Somalia, it's difficult to differentiate between a civilian and Shabab, right? The insurgents live amongst the local population. They're better than a local population. And they are fabric of the society. So oftentimes, as a Somali for me, for example, it's hard for me to differentiate between insurgents and a civilian. So how is the U.S. government going to do it? But a drone hundreds of miles away, you know, so that's what's happening. So let's talk about each of those groups. First, let's talk about the insurgents. What is going on with the insurgents? And does that they're going on?

that have anything to do with the United States, the president of the United States, namely, escalating his attacks in Somalia. Yes, Somalia is played by multiple insurgencies. The most relevant one is Al-Shabaab. It's been waged in a two-decade insurge against the Somali government, and it's the international coalition. Even though they've been pushed out of most major cities, they still control large swaths of territory in Somalia.

United Nations experts say the threat of al-Shabaab remains the greatest immediate threat to Somalia and the East Africa region. especially Kenya. The Al-Qaeda-linked group controls significant parts of southern and central Somalia. Despite sustained military pressure from Somali and international forces, the Al-Qaeda-linked group has retained its capacity to carry out complex asymmetric attacks, including high-profile operations in Mogadish. They've been able to create a parallel government and even a de facto state within Somali's borders. they pretty much have a monopoly on the use of force in the areas they control.

So they are a factor in Somalia. The U.S. is determined to battle them and weaken them on behalf of their allies, which is the Somali federal government. But at the same time, two decades of airstrikes, tens of thousands of foreign forces, and yet the insurgency is still fighting. They're still going, if not, strengthening in my observations. And meanwhile, it sounds like the United States is killing civilians. Yes, over the years there's been numerous incidents of the civilian is dying in U.S. airstrikes, going back to Bush all the way to now under Trump's second term, but it's worse than under Trump's second term.

And the reason for that is, for example, when Biden or Obama were in the White House, there were certain levels of, I would say, transparency. So when the U.S. wanted to carry an airstrike in Somalia, the commanders would have to inform, let's say, for example, their superiors. Those superiors would have to inform the Pentagon. Pentagon would inform, let's say, the CIA or the White House, every department had to sign on off it before the airstrike was conducted. This was made to be sure who is being targeted is actually the person who should be targeted.

In reference to avoiding civilian casualties, since Trump took over the White House, that doesn't exist no more. Low-level or mid-level commanders on the ground are giving the green light to do as they please. So there's less transparency, and this is why a lot of civilians are dying, unfortunately. And you wrote for the Guardian one story, a particularly tragic story about civilian death in Somalia. Could you tell us what happened? So this story was about a U.S. airstrike

targeting the Alishabab controlled farming town called Jamaladee in southern Somalia. When that airstrike happened, the U.S. killed 12 civilians, including eight children. So many things happened, honestly, because there were so many victims. But if I can give you a general breakdown of what happened is, One lady, three of her underage children were wounded in the airstrike.

She lived in the town of Jam Ahmed. The timing of the attack concurs with an airstrike claimed by U.S. Africa command together with the federal government. Afrikaam, alongside the federal government of Somalia and Somali armed forces, continues to take actions to degrade al-Shabaab's ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our citizens abroad. A big explosion happened outside. They didn't know what it was. but it was later to be found out to be a missile. All of my children were lying on the ground covered in blood.

When I tried to tend to them, shells began falling everywhere. Every direction you turned, there were shells and missiles raining everywhere. The Guardian, June 26. Eventually, she carried her wounded children and fled into the bushes deep in the countryside outside of town. The reason for that, she says, is because the drones were still hovering ahead. So she feared that she came out of the bushes, she would get hit in another airstrike. When she came to Mogadishu, she's trying to get help for her son, which she hasn't gone yet.

They told me if the shrapnel isn't removed from his body, it could affect his ability to continue walking. But I don't have $1,000 needed for the operation to remove the shrapnel from my son's body. What's worse than being a mother who can't do anything for her wounded children? The Guardian, June 26. Another man lost four of his grandchildren. They were ripped to pieces. When he tried to pick him up from the floor, he couldn't even pick them up

because they were ripped to so many pieces and they were so small. So these are some of the things, you know, that these people went through. And then for the U.S. to release a statement RSA Africa and say, we targeted Al-Shabaab to degrade them, this and that. I mean, you might have targeted them,

but you didn't get your target. You know, this is where you harmed. What is the U.S. government's relationship with the Somali? government like is the Somali government okay with these airstrikes? Are they aiding the United States in executing these air strikes? Yeah, I would say so because US is here on behalf of supporting the Somali federal government and counterterrorism, state building, even humanitarianism. Before U.S. aid was discarded about a year ago, they were the biggest funder of the projects

in support in Somalia. So I would say the U.S. has played a big role in supporting Somalia, but there's a misconception. When I say they support Somalia, they don't support ordinary Somalia. They support the Somali government, right? So they support the ministries, the security services, the civil society, the NGOs, things like that. But they don't support the average, you know, Joe Shimo walking down the street. So, and especially when it comes to these airstrikes, I think the Somali government needs them because they're fighting a more aggressive and some can even argue more powerful vote. What do the people want in Somalia?

Do they want the Somali government coordinating with the United States to fight al-Shabaab or, Or do they want the United States to get out of their business? It depends who you ask. Based on my observation, I think it's better to look at it from the perspective of what do Somalis want in reference to the country and the state of their nation and where things are heading. I think most Somalis just want to be left alone. I think most Somalis want to be in a position where they can dictate and choose the, you know, the fate and the route and just rule on their own accord, you know? Like pick their own leaders. They live how they want.

instead of the international community always intervening. I think that's the biggest problem. The international community has done a lot for Somali, but I think it's done more damage than benefit, in my opinion. You know, so many foreign intervention, so many international resolutions being passed, and it weakens the country even more. I really believe most Somalis are bothered by

the foreign interference and the foreign subjugation more than anything. If they're left alone, I think Somalis can fix their own problems out. Is that to say that the United States isn't helping? Yeah, I actually personally, based on my observation and research, I think they're doing more harm than good. Because there's no way that you're going to defeat al-Shabaab with air strikes. It's been going on for two decades. There's no tangible results.

They're even more powerful. Today, they run a parallel government in Somalia. They have a de facto state within Somali's borders. So with the U.S. Karnat Air Strikes propping up counters insurgency operations, I just feel like they want to fight Al-Shabaab, they're doing more harm. Because you have to bear in mind, every time a bomb or a missile falls from the sky, it forces more young people to take up arms and join the insurgency. I think that's just my observation.

You can read Mohamed Gabobe in The Guardian at Al Jazeera all over. He's a freelance journalist based in Mogadishu. When we're back on Today Explained, we're going to ask a colleague of ours at Vox why we don't hear much about this war of ours stateside. Support for today explained comes from Vanta. Every new tool your team signs up for every vendor that turns on AI features, every new integration, has a chance for something to go wrong, and most security programs weren't built for AI's pace of growth.

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Josh Keating, senior correspondent at Vox, covering foreign policy, national security. I want to ask you a question that you yourself asked in a piece you wrote for Vox earlier this year. Why is the United States bombing Somalia so much, and why isn't anyone talking about it? Well, I'll take the first part of that first. There are really two reasons. One is that Somalia is an increasingly important country when it comes to, the global ISIS network since ISIS has been sort of degraded and lost its territorial control in Syria and Iraq. A lot of the sort of focus of the leadership has shifted to Somalia. And actually

there are some senior officials who say that the global caliph, the head of ISIS, is actually located in Somalia now. Africa remains a nexus theater from which the United States cannot shift his gaze. ISIS controls her global network from Somalia. It was the Islamic State's new stronghold. From this village in northern Somalia, jihadists sought to expand the group's influence worldwide and finance other factions across the continent. That doesn't fully answer the question, though, because there are other countries where there are ISIS and al-Qaeda cells operating, where the U.S. is not conducting as many airstrikes. and the U.S. is also launching strikes against al-Shabaab, which doesn't really pose as direct a threat to the U.S. homeland.

So basically the conclusion I've come to is that to a certain extent, the war on terrorism works on autopilot, that these strikes just continue to happen unless somebody takes a step to stop them. You know, I think the reason we saw strikes go down when Joe Biden was president is they put these new targeting rules into place where basically the military had to get approval. from the White House to launch a counterterrorism strike against, you know, one of these senior ISIS or al-Shabaab terrorists. When Trump returned to the White House, he got rid of those rules. So now basically, Afriqom, the U.S. Africa Command, has much more authority to launch strikes as it sees fit, and that's exactly what it's doing. So you're saying basically that the United States military can execute strikes on sort of. Somali territory without running it by the president, the White House. And because of that,

we're doing it a bunch and in some cases even killing civilians. Yeah, I mean, you can look at a speech that Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism coordinator gave last summer at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies where basically his interpretation of is when, you know, the Trump administration got back in office, he says that officials were telling him that they weren't allowed to go after the bad guys. The Biden administration had this insane system whereby any strike against a high-value target had to be sent up to the White House through Jake Sullivan to the president for a green light. Insane.

And, you know, when Trump and Gorka came back in, you know, according to their narrative, they took the shackles off. Less than 30 hours later, I was back in the sit room under the West Wing, watching on the giant screens this leading ISIS jihadi walk around this complex, pound and then get turned into red mist. Since that time, we are stacking them like cordwood. Hmm. And so tell us how much more the United States is going after them than they maybe were under President Biden, Obama before him, Bush before him. Right. So in 2025 last year, the U.S. carried out 125 air strikes and one ground raid in Somalia. And this year, there have already been 70.

Now, to put that into context, both of those individual years are more than the number of operations that Joe Biden carried out during his entire presidency in the country. That would be 51. You know, this is also a much larger operation than, you know, say, the U.S. campaign

against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, which has gotten a lot more attention. And I think up until you know, epic fury, the U.S. war in Iran, you could say, you know, this was the Trump administration's largest war. And, you know, when's the last time you saw any sort of public debate about what the U.S. is doing in Somalia? It's very rare the President Trump even talks about what we're doing in Somalia.

I mean, this is the second part of the question that you posed in your piece. Why aren't we talking about it? What's the reason? Do we just accept this ongoing incursion because it's been going on so long? I think that's part of it. I mean, Somalia's been in effectively a state of civil war since the early 1990s

and the U.S. has been involved almost since the beginning. You know, the Black Hawk Down incident was 1993. This is Super 6-1 moments after it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, spinning out of control before it's torn apart on

impact. An American helicopter pilot taken prisoner in Somalia. One of six U.S. soldiers listed as missing in the heaviest fighting yet in Mogadishu. Twelve American soldiers killed, 78 wounded. Some of the dead dragged through the streets by jeering Somalis. And I think that, you know, Somalia is just a country that doesn't get a lot of attention in general. And I think that the fact that, you know, U.S. troops aren't in harm's way is a big part of the tooth. But I think one thing that the military has, the U.S. military has learned since 9-11 is that when U.S. troops aren't in harm's way and when there aren't large numbers of casualties, people just don't pay that much attention to it.

Hmm. President Trump doesn't talk much about what the United States military is doing in Somalia, but he certainly does sometimes talk about Somali immigrants in, you know, a racist sort of way. I don't want them in our country. Their country's no good for a reason. their country stinks. Somali is considered by many to be the worst country on earth. I don't know. I haven't been there.

I won't be there anytime soon. Does his feelings about the Somali people, especially in the United States, color the way he's conducting our military operations in the country? I don't think that the two are directly coordinated, but I think you have to, you can't ignore that context either.

And it's important. important to remember, these strikes are being conducted in cooperation with the Somali government. We're not at war with the nation of Somalia. So I don't think, you know, it's too simplistic to say that the reason we're bombing Somalia is because Trump has this antipathy towards Somalis that he's called them low IQ people or any of the terrible things he said about them. The way he talks about it is if he's not that involved or as if he's just sort of finding out about it from, you know, articles. on Fox News to come across his social media feed. It's not as if, you know, he seems to be taking a sort of daily operational supervision of it. So, you know, in his mind, the fact that Somalia is in the state of chaos, that there is this ongoing violence there, that there is humanitarian crisis there, that's all the more reason to be keeping Somalis out of the United States. So I think in that respect, the two are, even though I don't think that his antipathy or feelings about Somalis are the reason that we're conducting this campaign. Have things gotten any better?

I mean, the United States has been at this for so long. You mentioned Black Hawk Down, which feels like a lifetime ago. I think that the Somali government is not currently at risk of falling to these groups, which is something you could not necessarily say at various points of. the last 20 years. But, you know, al-Shabaab and ISIS, to a lesser extent, do control territory outside of the major cities in Somalia. And, you know, let's remember this is a country in the grips of a humanitarian crisis, too. You know, the World Food Program has warned that it's on the verge of famine, and that's been exacerbated by the cutbacks in aid that we,

we've seen primarily from the United States, as well as the increase in global food and fuel prices caused by the recent war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So, you know, this is a security crisis on top of a humanitarian crisis, and those two are interrelated, because one thing we've seen in the past is the way that armed groups in countries like Somalia can weaponize food and security, both for, you know, recruitments. and is actually using food and famine as a weapon. So, you know, the situation in Somalia remains dire, remains very serious. You know, even though thanks in part to American air power, you know, I don't think that the government in Mogadishu itself is in sort of direct danger of collapsing anytime soon.

And in some respects, is more stable than it's been in a long time. So for all the talk of Forever Wars in this country and ending them and not getting involved in military interventions that have no endgame, we are literally involved in one in Somalia and there's no sign of it stopping. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you a quote from last fall from when Trump gathered that group of U.S. military leaders together at Quantico to talk about the new vision for the U.S. military. He said, Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia, while America is under invasion from within. And while he said this, we're literally policing the far reaches of Somalia. We're literally conducting these operation against this militant group in Somalia, which poses a questionable, at best, national security threat to the United States,

with little end in sight. And it's exactly the sort of ongoing, unclear mission that Trump came into office promising to end. And, you know, the most dramatic and publicly discussed, counterfactual to that is the war in Iran. But I think it's even before that, it's worth noting that, you know, we're very much still doing forever war stuff

in the Horn of Africa and Somalia. Read Josh Keating at Vox.com. Heidi Mawagdi produced the show today. Jolie Myers edited. Gabriel Dunitav was on Facts and David Tadishore and Patrick Boyd were on the mix. I'm Sean Ramosford. We're going to talk a bit more about the U.S. military on tomorrow's today explained, namely how Pete Heggseth no longer wants to promote qualified women and black people.

What a time.