US Accused of Killing 22 Somali Soldiers in ‘Misdirected’ Airstrike

An airstrike in Northern Somalia left as many as 22 soldiers dead, local officials said, and one region said the United States had been duped into attacking its troops.

Galmudug’s Security Minister Osman Issa said 22 of his region’s soldiers had been killed in the areal raid, adding that the rival neighboring region of Puntland had requested it on the pretext that the men were al-Shabab militants, Business Standard reported.

“Puntland misinformed the United States and thus our forces were bombed,” he said.

A US Defense Department official also said Washington had conducted “a self-defense airstrike” against al-Shabab.

“The airstrike was called in after Somali troops faced fire from militants,” the official said. No evidence had been seen that the attack killed civilians or anyone other than al-Shabab militants, the official added.

A Puntland police officer said the attack had killed “more than a dozen” members of al Shabab, which is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s Western-backed government and regional authorities.

Galmudug and Puntland regions have often clashed over territory.

The United States has launched many airstrikes in Somalia, usually against al-Shabab.

Al-Shabab denied that it had any fighters in the area of the latest incident. “We neither have a base nor forces in Galkayo area,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

Protesters in Galmudug’s capital Galkayo burned US flags and images of President Barack Obama in protest, witnesses said. Shops closed because of the demonstrations.

Somalia is trying to rebuild after two decades of war. The conflict that began in 1991 left the Horn of Africa nation riven by clan rivalries and struggling with insurgency. Rival regions still sometimes take up arms against each other.