In yet another indication that the Biden administration has no intention to bring an end to endless war, the New York Times reported on May 16 that the US Africa Command will be redeploying troops to Somalia, and that the White House has approved the Pentagon’s request for discretionary authority to conduct drone strikes in the country.

Somalia has been the target of imperial warfare since December 2006, when the US backed an Ethiopian-led invasion that dislodged the first stable government that had emerged in years. As Ethiopian troops drove the Somali leadership into exile, more militant factions emerged in their place, planting the seeds for the growth of what is now known as al-Shabab. The State Department designated al-Shabab a foreign terrorist organization in February 2008, which provided cover for the Bush administration to begin targeting the group from the air.

Soon after President Barack Obama assumed office in 2009, he authorized US drone strikes as well as the deployment of special operations forces inside the country. Then President Donald Trump designated parts of Somalia as “areas of active hostilities” and instituted war-zone targeting rules when he expanded the discretionary authority of the military to conduct airstrikes and raids. Southern Somalia was then subjected to an unprecedented escalation of US drone strikes, with between 900 and 1,000 people killed between 2016 and 2019. All of this occurred without the United States ever formally declaring war on Somalia.