US mission in Somalia ‘not worth it,’ report says in push for drawdown of forces

The U.S. military’s justification for its ongoing bombing campaign in Somalia rests on a terrorist threat to America that doesn’t exist, according to a new report that calls for an end to the intervention.

Neither al-Shabab nor the Islamic State affiliate in Somalia has demonstrated the reach or intent needed to pose a significant danger to the U.S., the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank said in the report issued Tuesday.

Instead, the groups remain focused largely on local struggles inside Somalia, where years of American strikes and military assistance have failed to defeat them, the report said.

“The U.S. has very few interests in Somalia, security or otherwise,” wrote William Walldorf, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities.

Al-Shabab, ISIS-Somalia and their ilk “pose no threat to the U.S. homeland and have been arguably strengthened by ongoing U.S. military operations there,” the report added.

It comes amid a ramp-up in airstrikes in Somalia, which are occurring at a record-breaking pace. U.S. Africa Command has announced roughly 80 strikes so far this year, on the heels of about 125 airstrikes last year.

The spike coincides with a directive last year from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that granted more decision-making authority to AFRICOM commanders on when to launch attacks.

Still, it’s not clear how much effect the strikes are having on al-Shabab, which has operated in Somalia for two decades and seeks to overthrow the country’s government.

In 2025, al-Shabab made major territorial advances, erasing the government’s gains from two years prior, the International Crisis Group said in a report issued last month.

While government forces have since regrouped to secure territory around Mogadishu, swaths of central Somalia remain in the militants’ grip, leaving the two sides in a stalemate, the group said.

Over the years, U.S. military officials have argued that the AFRICOM mission in Somalia, which centers on training and advising government troops and providing air power support, is directly tied to U.S. security interests. 

Various commanders have said that Islamic militants in Somalia and elsewhere in Africa have ambitions to strike far beyond the continent.

AFRICOM’s current commander, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, said during a Senate hearing in May that the “epicenter of global terrorism is in Africa.”

“ISIS leadership is African; al-Qaida’s economic engine is in Africa,” Anderson said. “Both of these groups share the will and intent to strike our homeland.”

However, the threat such organizations pose to the United States has been a point of contention.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in his 2022 memoir, wrote that his effort to scale back the mission in Somalia was met with resistance at AFRICOM. While Esper said he saw the threat posed by al-Shabab as limited, AFRICOM disagreed.

“Such an assessment would threaten their resources,” Esper wrote.

President Donald Trump pulled U.S. forces out of Somalia at the end of his first term, but they were sent back in during the early part of former President Joe Biden’s tenure and continue to operate there.

The Defense Priorities report argues that resources in Somalia should be directed elsewhere, saying the “costs of keeping troops in place are not worth it.”

The total price tag of U.S. operations in the country is unclear because the Pentagon does not publicly disclose such data. But the campaign has likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the report said.

Trump should phase out the missions over a period of months while handing off more responsibility to other partners in the region, according to the think tank.

“In short, there are a lot of countries with far more at stake in Somalia than the United States that can figure out a path forward,” the report concluded.