Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

The Known Unknowns of the Secret US Drone War in Somalia
This Is Hell
06 Mar 2019
🖨️ Print Article

US troops landed in oil-rich Somalia in 1992 and never really left. Over the years some have been replaced with drones and mercenary contractors, but Americans still prop up their version of a Somali government, headed by a US citizen whose writ doesn't go much beyond the capital. Obama bombed Somalia regularly, but under Trump the number of drone strikes have tripled, killing unknown numbers of Africans and terrorizing large swaths of the countryside. The US government doesn't even reveal which agency is conducting many of the bombing strikes, and next to no reporting on the long war in Somalia appears in the US press or broadcast media.

ThisIsHell host Chuck Mertz interviews Mogadishu based journalist Amanda Sperber. Amanda wrote the article "Inside the Secretive US Air Campaign In Somalia" for The Nation: www.thenation.com/article/somalia-…et-air-campaign/

This interview was originally broadcasted by our friends at ThisISHell.com on Saturday February 16, 2019.

Somalia
drone warfare

Related Podcasts

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Israel's Recognition of Somaliland Destabilizes the Horn of Africa
09 January 2026
Israel is the first and only nation to recognize the Somaliland region of Somalia as an independent state.
Map of the Horn of Africa
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Trump Administration Continues U.S. Destabilization of Somalia
21 February 2025
Abayomi Azikiwe, is the editor of Pan-African Newswire.

More Stories


  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Seeks to Turn Eritrea Into “a Bulwark Against Iranian Influence”
    29 Apr 2026
    As the militarization of the Red Sea escalates, the US tries to enlist Eritrea in exchange for sanctions relief.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Documents of Disaster and Conferences of Calamity: Rhetorical Questions, Questions of Rhetoric and the Transition  from Fossil Fuels
    29 Apr 2026
    The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels produced a People's Declaration. There have been many such statements over the years, yet the climate crisis continues unabated.
  • Mark P. Fancher
    Political Snobbery Delays Black Liberation
    29 Apr 2026
    The conditions are ripe for growing Black political consciousness, but revolutionary movements must broaden their reach to all sectors and classes of the people.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    Move the Games: No World Cup for Genocide, Ecocide, or State Thuggery
    29 Apr 2026
    A celebration of the most popular sport in the world can't be held in a country that commits genocide, ecocide, and daily state violence. The World Cup must not be held in the U.S.
  • Joshua Reaves Charmelus
    Exporting Apartheid: Israel’s Role in Haiti’s Water Crisis
    29 Apr 2026
    Behind the Dominican Republic’s assault on Haitian water sovereignty stands an Israeli Occupation apparatus – arming border forces, training police, and designing a thirty-year plan to control their…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us