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


  • Human Suffering Worsens in DRC, the Heart of Africa
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Human Suffering Worsens in DRC, the Heart of Africa
    28 Jun 2023
    A million more Congolese people have been displaced to satisfy the resource hunger of the industrialized world.
  • Bipartisol and the ailing body politic
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Bipartisol and the ailing body politic
    28 Jun 2023
                                                         
  • BAR Book Forum: Amanda Lock Swarr’s Book, “Envisioning African Intersex”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Amanda Lock Swarr’s Book, “Envisioning African Intersex”
    28 Jun 2023
    This week’s featured author is Amanda Lock Swarr. Swarr is Associate Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.
  • AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #47
    Black Alliance for Peace US Out of Africa Network
    AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #47
    28 Jun 2023
    Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor Ann Garrison analyzes the continued plunder of the Democratic Republic of Congo by U.S. allies Uganda and Rwanda in the latest Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM…
  • New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners
    Orisanmi Burton
    New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners
    28 Jun 2023
    The field of medicine is not inherently beneficial. Marginalized people have long been used for experimentation purposes, and the incarceration and surveillance states have participated in…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us