President Donald Trump said Saturday that a series of U.S. military strikes targeted a senior ISIS attack planner.
“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians. Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!” Trump said. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
The senior ISIS member was not named by Trump in his post on TruthSocial.
The recently confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also said that the Somali government was involved in the planning of the attack.
An initial assessment by the Pentagon indicated that “multiple” operatives were killed. The Pentagon said is assesses no civilians were harmed in the strikes.
U.S. military officials have warned that IS cells have received increasing direction from the group’s leadership that relocated to northern Somalia. That has included how to kidnap Westerners for ransom, how to learn better military tactics, how to hide from drones and how to building their own small quadcopters.
A U.S. military airstrike in Somalia last May targeted IS militants and killed three, according to U.S. Africa Command.
The number of IS militants in the country are estimated to be in the hundreds, mostly scattered in the Cal Miskaat mountains in Puntland’s Bari region, according to the International Crisis Group.
