A US air strike killed three fighters from the Islamic State in the Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region on Friday, a US military official said, two weeks after the group’s deputy leader was killed in a strike.
A witness said missiles struck two wells on the outskirts of Timirshe village, some 60km southeast of Puntland’s commercial capital Bosaso. The US military has stepped up its campaign of air strikes in Somalia since President Donald Trump took office, saying it has killed more than 800 militants in two years.
“This air strike eliminated ISIS-Somalia members staged in a remote location in northern Somalia,” Maj. Gen. Gregg Olson, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) director of operations, said yesterday.