A colonel from US special operations in Somalia with a soldier from a branch of the Somali army trained by US special forces, in Mogadishu in 2023. Photograph: Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
The water was rising rapidly. It had already reached Cayni Ali’s waist. Her home, five metres from the flooded River Juba in southern Somalia, never stood a chance. There was nowhere to go. Ali’s city of Jilib was under attack. Repeated airstrikes, said the mother of six, were pinning its population beside the rising river.
“The drones come all the time,” said the 27-year-old. “We hear them constantly. They kill animals, civilians. The town is big but destruction is everywhere.”
Asho Omar from Malenda, a village near Jilib, described “constant” airstrikes that had forced people towards the banks of the Juba.
“The airstrikes are everywhere; it is difficult to move. So many people have been killed.”
Their testimony offers a rare glimpse of life inside the stronghold of al-Shabaab, the Islamist militants who control 30% of Somalia. Closed off from the outside world, residents describe a city dealing with significant civilian casualties. Bodies, some said, lay in the streets.
The ongoing conflict is a legally ambiguous, shadowy war coordinated by the United States in east Africa, in which there is little accountability for harm to Somali civilians.
The United States Africa Command (Africom) would not share “operational security” details of a seemingly accelerating campaign that has also raised questions over potential covert US strikes. But there is, perhaps, an even darker dimension to the offensive on al-Shabaab’s de facto capital.
Sources say the military strategy appears to be seeking to drown those living in al-Shabaab territory by “weaponising” a rapidly strengthening El Niño, forecast to intensify Somalia’s rainy season from this month.
“The airstrikes are forcing people to go close to the river. It’s an extremely aggressive offensive, exploiting El Niño as a weapon of war to push the population into flood-prone areas,” said a source monitoring the Juba floodplain in southern Somalia.
Pinning the population – which includes large numbers of women and children – on the river’s floodplain has raised concerns of large-scale deaths in the months ahead.
“The official line is that they are targeting military positions and al-Shabaab, but because al-Shabaab is embedded within the community, it’s difficult to avoid collateral damage,” added the source.
When El Niño last struck Somalia in 2023, it caused the worst floods seen in the country for a century, displacing more than 1.2 million people. Analysts have questioned the ethics of the US military allegedly using mapping data from flood-prone areas – conceived to mitigate civilian casualties – to inflict harm.
Jethro Norman, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies, said: “A weaponisation of El Niño is a reversal of process – using humanitarian remote sensing to inflict casualties rather than to mitigate harm. You capture the cumulative impact of a sustained airstrikes campaign in an El Niño flooding context.”
US officials deny exploiting climatic factors. A spokesperson said: “Africom does not target civilians, conduct operations for the purpose of displacing civilian populations or use weather or flooding as a method of warfare. Africom targets lawful military objectives and takes feasible measures to mitigate civilian harm.”
Nevertheless, many wonder if the opportunity to weaken al-Shabaab using the weather was too tempting to ignore, offering a catastrophic drowning event blamed on a supercharged El Niño.
Like many cities, Jilib’s location has been found wanting in an era of extreme weather. On a low-lying plain, the city is chronically vulnerable to flooding. In 2023, vast swathes of farmland were submerged. Halimo Abdikadir from Kamsuuma, south of Jillib, described the destruction of her home, 6 miles (10km) from the river. “The waters came quickly at night – when they left, everything was mud. A lot of animals drowned.”
Arbey Famu from Ahmed Yare, another village outside Jilib, expects this El Niño to be far worse than 2023: her crops of maize and sorghum are underwater.
“In Jilib, there is big flooding already,” said the 70-year-old.
US defence officials will know the early indicators of El Niño’s impact in al-Shabaab’s heartland. UN agencies say the Juba River basin is of “particular concern”. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), meanwhile, foresees “severe flooding”.
Attacking Jilib using ground forces carries much risk. Airstrikes can yield triumphs such as the death of a senior al-Shabaab commander on 1 October, but are unable to ove