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


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright , ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    COPing Out In Brazil: How The United Nations Reduces its Legitimacy More Than Global Emissions
    19 Nov 2025
    Despite being held in Brazil, a nation with the largest Black population outside of the African continent, COP30 has continued a thirty-year pattern of sidelining the specific climate threats to Afro…
  • Jon Jeter
    In South Africa, White is the New Black: The ANC’s Failures Opens the Door for the Return of a Government Led by Settlers
    19 Nov 2025
    Decades of unmet promises and endemic corruption have eroded the ANC's legitimacy, creating a surge of support for a party led by South Africa's white minority.
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    “Only unity will make us free:” The Masses Build and Sustain a Zone of Peace through the Unity of Struggles
    19 Nov 2025
    As U.S. militarism intensifies across Latin America and the Caribbean, regional social movements are making the firm declaration that only a unified, mass-driven front can build a true "Zone of Peace…
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    A Call for Mass Struggle Against U.S.-Led War on Venezuela and the Caribbean
    19 Nov 2025
    The assault on Venezuela's sovereignty represents a broader imperial strategy to discipline any nation that defies U.S. hegemony.
  • Jessica Washington
    SNAP Recipients Crushed by Democrats Caving on Shutdown: “They Just Wasted It All”
    19 Nov 2025
    SNAP recipients were willing to sacrifice to protect health care benefits for themselves and others and they are furious that the Democrats' chose collusion with the Trump administration rather than…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us