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

Israel and Somaliland
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
U.S. and Israeli Interference in Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia
25 September 2026
Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African Newswire, discusses Israeli recognitio
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


  • Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 4, 2020
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 4, 2020
    04 May 2020
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 4, 2020 Corporate Media Largely Decide Which Black Lives Matter
  • Black Ex-Felons Are Slow to Vouch for Other Former Offenders
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Ex-Felons Are Slow to Vouch for Other Former Offenders
    04 May 2020
    Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Black former offenders “need to see strong evidence" that the formerly incarcerated person has really changed, said Sandra Susan Smith, a
  • Dubois’ Views on “Veil” of Blackness Explains White Suburban Micro-Aggressions
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Dubois’ Views on “Veil” of Blackness Explains White Suburban Micro-Aggressions
    04 May 2020
    Upscale Black mothers who moved to Detroit’s white suburbs in search of better schools for their kids are suffering “battle fatigue” from constant struggles with their neighbors, according to 
  • Corporate Media Largely Decide Which Black Lives Matter
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Corporate Media Largely Decide Which Black Lives Matter
    04 May 2020
    A study by sociology professor Alicia Simmons, of Colgate University, found that corporate media journalists sometimes adopt an adversarial relationship with local police, but
  • Late-Stage Racial Capitalism Opened the Door to the Killer Virus
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Late-Stage Racial Capitalism Opened the Door to the Killer Virus
    30 Apr 2020
    The white settler state always inflicts excessive mortality on racially subject peoples, and capitalism inflicts death on large sections of its disproportionately non-white working class and poor.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us