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


  • Wakanda Must Fall
    Jared Ball
    Wakanda Must Fall
    16 Nov 2022
    This new film is rightly called a fantasy, and not just because Wakanda doesn't exist. If Black moviegoers are not aware of the dangerous politics it espouses, they will find themselves believing in…
  • Bittersweet Freedom for Mutulu Shakur
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Bittersweet Freedom for Mutulu Shakur
    16 Nov 2022
    Mutulu Shakur has been granted parole, but he is terminally ill. Black political prisoners in this country are held for 30, 40 and 50 years. Reprieve happens only when they are at death's door.
  • MANIFESTO: The Nairobi Manifesto, 1985
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    MANIFESTO: The Nairobi Manifesto, 1985
    16 Nov 2022
    In 1985, African women tried to warn us about a world in crisis. Did we listen?
  • Priest App
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Priest App
    16 Nov 2022
    Priest App
  •  BAR Book Forum: Natasha Gordon-Chipembere’s “Finding La Negrita”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Natasha Gordon-Chipembere’s “Finding La Negrita”
    16 Nov 2022
    This week’s featured author is Natasha Gordon-Chipembere. Gordon-Chipembere holds a PhD in English from the University of South Africa. She was born in New York to a Costa Rican mom and a Panamanian…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us