US predator drones carried another round of deadly drone strikes in Somalia. The Al Shabaab controlled town of Jilib was the latest locality to be besieged by US air power.
In a statement published online, US AFRICOM which oversees US military operations in Africa claimed responsibility for the drone strike at 19:50 this evening. Per US AFRICOM one militant from the Al Qaeda affiliated militant group Al Shabaab was killed in the strike.
However prominent Western owned Somali media outlets where quick to debunk the claims made by US AFRICOM. In a candid interview published on the Somali branch of VOA news, Adnaan Haji a senior official from Hormuzd, the largest telecom companies in Somalia confirmed the branch directer of Hormud telecom in Somalia’s Jubada Dhexe province died instantly when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by a US drone.
The victim has been identified as Mohamud Haji Sirad. It’s still not clear why the victim was in the volatile Jubada Dhexe province, which is the only province in Somalia fully controlled by Al Shabaab. In a similar report, the Somali branch of BBC news reported an eerily similar story.
According to BBC Somali a senior official from Hormud telecom who refused to named publicly on the record confirmed one of there branch directors perished in the US drone strike.
The US military is yet to comment on these damming allegations of civilian deaths as a result of there drone attacks. It was just last year when Amnesty International publishesd a ground breaking report accusing the the US military of commiting war crimes in Somalia due its deadly drone war being waged in the country.
Halgan Media Service Desk
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