US Special Forces attacked in Somalia. 1 KIA and 5 WIA.
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A US Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) came under attack today in the Bar-Sanguni area near Kismayo in Somalia. The US Special Forces team was in the process of constructing a new Forward Operating Base (FOB) with a large local partner force when they came under sustained mortar fire and machine gun fire from technicals operated by the Islamic terrorist organization Al-Shabab.
The attacked was described as complex in nature, with the enemy coordinating their fires resulting in one American soldier Killed in Action and five Wounded in Action, which only left half of the team uninjured by the end of the firefight. Casualties were quickly evacuated to Djibouti. The Special Forces team came from 3rd Special Forces Group who are assigned to Africa as their Area of Responsibility.
https://sofrep.com/104381/breaking-us-special-forces-attacked-in-somalia-by-al-shabab/
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/08/politics/us-military-somalia-casualty/index.html
First there was the incident in Niger then this. I understand there are risks to being deployed and often SOF are sometimes operating without the support a conventional unit would get but this is the second time this year our guys have been ambushed. I don't know if it's unfair to criticize them because after all they are only human and humans make mistakes. But at the same time the only info us regular people are getting from Africa is news of SF dudes dying.
It also seems to be a case of SOF doing more 'regular soldiering' jobs such as maintaining FOBs, without the strength in numbers and backup you'd expect from a regular army or marine unit doing the same task. Of course, I have no idea if this is something new and unique to the African deployments, or if it's always been like this and the attacks are the only new part.
They're there to build up, advise, and assist the local forces which is the classic Green Beret mission. The SOFREP article mentions that they were with a large local partner force, so I assume they were mainly there to direct how they should build the FOB to be defensible. In a way, it's kind of similar to how they established small bases along the border of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
From what I understand, the attacks aren't really new but this has been a sign of them getting bolder since the Mali attack. SF activities in the region aren't really reported on unless they take significant casualties. This also isn't the first time Al-Shabab has given western SOF trouble. There was that failed French DGSE hostage rescue attempt that resulted in one of their men getting left behind and killed and last year a SEAL was killed during a raid
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