Trump’s secret war

0:01The president's half-rally, half-national address on the 4th of July was evacuated, delayed, but eventually delivered just before the clock struck 5th of July. He talked about communism so much it felt like 1954 out there on the National Mall. America will never be a communist country. Won't happen. He talked at length about some of the nation's past military glories, and he spoke briefly about some of his recent interventions. Our recent victory by sinking the entire Iranian Navy, 159 ships, to the bottom of the sea, all done in just a moment's time. He did not mention that he still hasn't really managed to end his war in Iran.

0:39You look at Iran, we wiped it out. And the president made zero mention of the nation's longest ongoing military intervention. In fact, he seldom talks about it. Few people in Washington do. But President Trump has been quietly ratcheting up airstrikes in Somalia, so we are going to talk about that on Today Explained from Vox. Here's something most wellness influencers won't tell you. Obsessing over supplements, powders, cold plunges, wearables, and hacks? That's going to undermine your goals. I call it majoring in the minors, and it is one of the five mistakes I see people make most on their wellness journeys.

1:14I'm Rappin Arsand, VP and head instructor at Peloton. and this week on my podcast Project Swagger I'm sharing all of those mistakes and what I want to see you do instead. Follow Project Swagger now wherever you get your podcasts. Ever feel like your paycheck disappears the second it hits your account? Like a$25 cocktail and rent that costs you a kidney is just sort of normal now? Well, I'm Vivian Tu, your Rich BFF and on Net Worth and Chill we're looking into what's really driving the cost of living crisis where your wallet is hurting the most and the hacks to bring those prices back down to something that actually makes sense.

1:48Ready to stop getting screwed at the pump, the grocery store, or on your rent check? Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash yourrichbff. This is Today Explained. If you want to hear more about what's going on in Somalia, it's best to head to Somalia. So we reached out to journalist Mohamed Gabobe in Mogadishu. Somalia, as you know, has been plagued two decades by an ongoing Islamist insurgency. Al-Shabaab was formed in 2002 and came to prominence in 2006. Their targets, citizens, government officials, and diplomats in southern and central Somalia. But the conflict in Somalia is not just between the government and the insurgents.

2:31It also includes international actors, namely the United States of America. The United States has at least 500 soldiers in this country, but it's trained and paid for Somali troops to form the Danab Unit or Lightning Force. In addition to training, U.S. troops provide critical support to the Somali troops, including surveillance from overhead drones and airstrikes. The U.S. has been carrying out airstrikes in Somalia for two decades, and it's heightened, or I should say even worsened, under the Trump administration. So far, there's been 196 airstrikes in Somalia since the Trump administration took the helm of the White House.

3:07This is compared to 219 during his first term. So in essence, what you have is a very upscale and escalating U.S. air war in Somalia at the moment.

3:20And who's being attacked? Who's dying? The insurgents are being attacked, as they say, but unfortunately civilians are getting caught up in the mist in these airstrikes. The reason being is oftentimes in a place like Somalia, it's difficult to differentiate between a civilian and Shabab, right? The insurgents live amongst the local population. They're embedded in the local population. And they are fabric of the society. So oftentimes, as a Somali for me, for example, it's hard for me to differentiate between insurgents and a civilian. So how is the U.S. government going to do it? Put a drone hundreds of miles away?

3:54You know, so that's what's happening. So let's talk about each of those groups. First, let's talk about the insurgents. What is going on with the insurgents? And does that have anything to do with the United States, the president of the United States, namely escalating his attacks in Somalia? Yes, Somalia is plagued by multiple insurgencies. The most relevant one is al-Shabaab. It's been waging a two-decade insurgency against the Somali government and it's the international coalition. Even though they've been pushed out of most major cities, they still control large swaths of territory in Somalia.

4:25United Nations experts say the threat of al-Shabaab remains the greatest immediate threat to Somalia and the East Africa region, especially Kenya. The Al-Qaeda-linked group controls significant parts of southern and central Somalia. Despite sustained military pressure from Somali and international forces, the Al-Qaeda-linked group has retained its capacity to carry out complex asymmetric attacks, including high-profile operations in Mogadishu. They've been able to create a parallel government and even a de facto state within Somalia's borders. They pretty much have a monopoly on the use of force in the areas they control.

5:04So they are a factor in Somalia. The U.S. is determined to battle them and weaken them on behalf of their allies, which is the Somali federal government. But at the same time, two decades of airstrikes, tens of thousands of foreign forces, and yet the insurgency is still fighting. They're still going, if not strengthening, in my observations. And meanwhile, it sounds like the United States is killing civilians. Yes. Over the years, there's been numerous incidents of the civilians dying in U.S. airstrikes, going back to Bush all the way to now under Trump's second term. But it's worse than under Trump's second term.

5:41And the reason for that is, for example, when Biden or Obama were in the White House, there were certain levels of, I would say, transparency. So when the U.S. wanted to carry an airstrike in Somalia, the commanders would have to inform, let's say, for example, their superiors, Those peers would have to inform the Pentagon. Pentagon would inform, let's say, the CIA or the White House. Every department had to sign on off it before the airstrike was conducted. This was made to be sure who is being targeted is actually the person who should be targeted. In reference to avoiding civilian casualties.

6:12Since Trump took over the White House, that doesn't exist no more. Low-level or mid-level commanders on the ground are given the green light to do as they please. So there's less transparency. And this is why a lot of civilians are dying, unfortunately. And you wrote for The Guardian one story, a particularly tragic story about civilian death in Somalia. Could you tell us what happened? So this story was about a U.S. airstrike targeting the Al-Shabaab-controlled farming town called Jamamid Deep in southern Somalia. When that airstrike happened, the U.S. killed 12 civilians, including eight children.

6:49So many things happened, honestly, because there were so many victims. But if I can give you like a general breakdown of what happened is one lady, three of her underage children were wounded in the airstrike. She lived in the town of Jamamid. The timing of the attack concurs with an airstrike claimed by U.S. Africa Command together with the federal government. AFRICOM, alongside the federal government of Somalia and Somali armed forces, continues to take actions to degrade Al-Shabaab's ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our citizens abroad. A big explosion happened outside.

7:24They didn't know what it was then, but it was later to be found out to be a missile. All of my children were lying on the ground, covered in blood. When I tried to tend to them, shells began falling everywhere. Every direction you turned, there were shells and missiles raining everywhere. The Guardian, June 2026 Eventually, she carried her wounded children and fled into the bushes deep in the countryside outside of town. The reason for that, she says, is because the drones were still hovering ahead. So she feared if she came out of the bushes, she would get hit in another airstrike. When she came to Mogadishu, she's trying to get help for her son, which she hasn't gotten yet.

8:04They told me if the shrapnel isn't removed from his body, it could affect his ability to continue walking. But I don't have$1 ,000 needed for the operation to remove the shrapnel from my son's body. What's worse than being a mother who can't do anything for her wounded children? The Guardian, June 2026. Another man lost four of his grandchildren. They were ripped to pieces. When he tried to pick them up from the floor, he couldn't even pick them up because they were ripped to so many pieces and they were so small. So these are some of the things, you know, that these people went through. And then for the U.S.

8:40to release a statement, or say Africa, and say we targeted Al-Shabaab to degrade them, this and that. I mean, you might have targeted them, but you didn't get your target. You know, this is who you harmed.

8:59What is the U.S. government's relationship with the Somali government like? Is the Somali government okay with these airstrikes? Are they aiding the United States in executing these airstrikes? Yeah, I would say so because U.S. is here on behalf of supporting the Somali federal government in counterterrorism, state building, even humanitarianism. Before U.S. aid was discarded about a year ago, they were the biggest funder of projects in support in Somalia. So I would say the U.S. has played a big role in supporting Somalia, but there's a misconception. When I say they support Somalia, they don't support ordinary Somalis.

9:32They support the Somali government, right? So they support the ministries, the security services, the civil society, the NGOs, things like that. But they don't support the average Joe Shmuel walking down the street. And especially when it comes to these airstrikes, I think the Somali government needs them because they're fighting a more aggressive and some can even argue more powerful folk. What do the people want in Somalia? Do they want the Somali government coordinating with the United States to fight al-Shabaab? Or do they want the United States to get out of their business? It depends who you ask.

10:07But based on my observation, I think it's better to look at it from the perspective of what do Somalis want in reference to their country and the state of their nation and where things are heading. I think most Somalis just want to be left alone. I think most Somalis want to be in a position where they can dictate and choose the fate and the route and just rule on their own accord, you know? Like pick their own leaders, live how they want, instead of the international community always intervening. I think that's the biggest problem. The international community has done a lot for Somali, but I think it's done more damage than benefit, in my opinion, you know?

10:39So many foreign interventions, so many international resolutions being passed, and it weakens the country even more. I really believe most Somalis are bothered by the foreign interference and the foreign subjugation more than anything. If they're left alone, I think Somalis can fix their own problems now. Is that to say that the United States isn't helping? Yeah, actually, personally, based on my observation and research, I think they're doing more harm than good. Because there's no way that you're going to defeat Al-Shabaab at airstrikes. It's been going on for two decades. There's no tangible results.

11:08They're even more powerful. Today, they run a parallel government in Somalia. They have a de facto state within Somalia's borders. So with the U.S. Kairanat airstrikes propping up counter-insurgency operations, I just feel like they want to fight al-Shabaab, but they're doing more harm. Because you have to bear in mind, every time a bomb or a missile falls from the sky, it forces more young people to take up arms and join the insurgency. So I think that's just my observation.

11:40You can read Mohamed Gabobe in The Guardian at Al Jazeera all over. He's a freelance journalist based in Mogadishu. When we're back on Today Explained, we're going to ask a colleague of ours at Vox why we don't hear much about this war of ours stateside.

12:04Support for Today Explained comes from Vanta. Every new tool your team signs up for, every vendor that turns on AI features, every new integration has a chance for something to go wrong. And most security programs weren't built for AI's pace of growth. Enter Vanta. Vanta is a top agentic trust platform used by over 16 ,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Purser, and Harvey to ensure they're always audit-ready. And now Vanta is helping companies like yours watch for the risks that show up between audits across your vendors, your AI tools and your whole environment. How? The Vanta agent works like a 24-7 GRC engineer in the background, finding issues, drafting fixes for you and cutting vendor assessment time by up to 50%.

12:48Whether you're a fast growing startup or a global enterprise, Vanta is here to help you automate your security and compliance and earn and prove trust. You can get started today at Vanta.com slash explained. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash explained.

13:07Support for the show comes from Chime. Ding dong. Chime is changing the way people bank by offering rewarding fee-free banking. They're not like traditional old banks that charge you overdraft and monthly fees. And they have thousands of fee-free ATMs because you shouldn't pay to get your own money. Chime members can benefit from up to$1 ,150 in annual rewards with no fees. You can get 5 % cash back on ChimeCard in a category of choice like gas or groceries. Your savings can grow faster too with a 3.75 APY, which is nine times higher than the national average. Take that national average. Chime is not just smarter banking.

13:51It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free today. You can go to chime.com slash explain. That is chime.com slash explain. It only takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services for MyPay and ChimeCard provided by Chime's bank partners. For more information on APY rates, MyPay, SpotMe, and Travel Bricks, go to chime.com slash disclosures.

14:21Support for the show today comes from Quince. there's no better time than today to update your wardrobe. And it's not because your clothes aren't fabulous, not because you're not fabulous, you're fabulous. But look, look outside, summer is here or it's, you know, been here in some cases and you want pieces that feel easy, comfortable and still put together. That's where Quince comes in. They focus on high quality essentials that can make you feel amazing, quite frankly. Well-made basics, but without the luxury markup. Claire White has tried Quince. I've gotten a lot of great summer pieces from Quince, from their basic t-shirts to their linen button-downs.

14:57They have a really wide range of awesome summer staples that will stay in my closet the whole season. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to Quince.com slash explained for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash explained for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash explained.

15:25This is Today Explained.

15:32Josh Keating, senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy, national security. I want to ask you a question that you yourself asked in a piece you wrote for Vox earlier this year. Why is the United States bombing Somalia so much and why isn't anyone talking about it? Well, I'll take the first part of that first. There are really two reasons. One is that Somalia is an increasingly important country when it comes to the global ISIS network. Since ISIS has been sort of degraded and lost its territorial control in Syria and Iraq, a lot of the sort of focus of the leadership has shifted to Somalia.

16:11And actually, there are some senior officials who say that the global caliph, the head of ISIS, is actually located in Somalia now. Africa remains a nexus theater from which the United States cannot shift its gaze. ISIS controls their global network from Somalia. It was the Islamic State's new stronghold. From this village in northern Somalia, jihadists sought to expand the group's influence worldwide and finance other factions across the continent. That doesn't fully answer the question, though, because there are other countries where there are ISIS and al-Qaeda cells operating where the U.S.

16:52is not conducting as many airstrikes. And, you know, the U.S. is also launching strikes against al-Shabaab, which doesn't really pose as direct a threat to the U.S. homeland. So basically, the conclusion I've come to is that to a certain extent, the war on terrorism works on autopilot, that these strikes just continue to happen unless somebody takes a step to stop them. You know, I think the reason we saw strikes go down when Joe Biden was president is they put these new targeting rules into place where basically the military had to get approval from the White House to launch a counterterrorism strike against, you know, one of these senior ISIS or Al-Shabaab terrorists.

17:32When Trump returned to the White House, he got rid of those rules. So now basically AFRICOM, the U.S.-Africa Command, has much more authority to launch strikes as it sees fit. And that's exactly what it's doing. So you're saying basically that the United States military can execute strikes on Somali territory without running it by the president, the White House. And because of that, we're doing it a bunch and in some cases even killing civilians. Yeah, I mean, you can look at a speech that Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism coordinator, gave last summer at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, where basically his interpretation of is when, you know, the Trump administration got back in office, he says that officials were telling him that they weren't allowed to go after the bad guys.

18:26The Biden administration had this insane system whereby any strike against a high-value target had to be sent up to the White House through Jake Sullivan to the president for a green light. Insane. And, you know, when Trump and Gorka came back in, you know, according to their narrative, they took the shackles off. Less than 30 hours later, I was back in the sit room under the West Wing, watching on the giant screens this leading ISIS jihadi walk around this compound and then get turned into red mist. Since that time, we are stacking them like cordwood. And so tell us how much more the United States is going after them than they maybe were under President Biden, Obama before him, Bush before him.

19:14Right. So in 2025, last year, the U.S. carried out 125 airstrikes and one ground raid in Somalia. And this year, there have already been 70. Now, to put that into context, both of those individual years are more than the number of operations that Joe Biden carried out during his entire presidency in the country. That would be 51. You know, this is also a much larger operation than, you know, say the U.S. campaign against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, which has gotten a lot more attention. And I think up until, you know, Epic Fury, the U.S. war in Iran, you could say, you know, this was the Trump administration's largest war.

20:01And, you know, when's the last time you saw any sort of public debate about what the U.S. is doing in Somalia? It's very rare that President Trump even talks about what we're doing in Somalia.

20:15I mean, this is the second part of the question that you posed in your piece. Why aren't we talking about it? What's the reason? Do we just accept this ongoing incursion because it's been going on so long? I think that's part of it. I mean, Somalia has been in effectively a state of civil war since the early 1990s. And the U.S. has been involved almost since the beginning. You know, the Black Hawk Down incident was 1993. This is Super 6-1, moments after it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, spinning out of control before it's torn apart on impact. An American helicopter pilot taken prisoner in Somalia.

20:57One of six U.S. soldiers listed as missing in the heaviest fighting yet in Mogadishu. 12 American soldiers killed, 78 wounded. Some of the dead dragged through the streets by jeering Somalis. And I think that, you know, Somalia is just a country that doesn't get a lot of attention in general. And I think that the fact that, you know, U.S. troops aren't in harm's way is a big part of it, too. But I think one thing that the military has, the U.S. military has learned since 9-11 is that when U.S. troops aren't in harm's way and when there aren't large numbers of casualties, people just don't pay that much attention to it.

21:35President Trump doesn't talk much about what the United States military is doing in Somalia, but he certainly does sometimes talk about Somali immigrants in, you know, a racist sort of way. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks. Somalia is considered by many to be the worst country on earth. I don't know. I haven't been there. I won't be there anytime soon. Does his feelings about the Somali people, especially in the United States, color the way he's conducting our military operations in the country? I don't think that the two are directly coordinated, but I think you have to, you can't ignore that context either.

22:21And it's important to remember these strikes are being conducted in cooperation with the Somali government. We're not at war with the nation of Somalia. So I don't think, you know, it's too simplistic to say that the reason we're bombing Somalia is because Trump has this antipathy towards Somalis that he's called them low IQ people or any of the terrible things he said about them. The way he talks about it is if he's not that involved or as if he's just sort of finding out about it from, you know, articles on Fox News that come across his social media feed. It's not as if, you know, he seems to be taking a sort of daily operational supervision of it.