US Africa Command’s Golis Mountain Strike Was A Message, And ISIS-Somalia Heard It

U.S. Africa Command confirmed an airstrike on ISIS-Somalia in the Golis Mountains earlier this month, with the target area pegged at roughly 85 kilometers southeast of Bosaso. AFRICOM said it acted in coordination with Somalia’s federal government and kept details on units and platforms locked down for operational security. That is classic tight-lipped operational discipline. The location tells its own story. The rugged Bari highlands have sheltered ISIS cells for years, and hitting there signals that U.S. reach and Somali cooperation remain aligned where it counts.

Why This Matters To U.S. Interests

This is a hedge against three overlapping risks.

First, external plotting that could touch Americans and embassies across East Africa or aim at U.S. personnel and aircraft transiting regional hubs, with Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti always on the threat planner’s whiteboard.

Second, maritime harassment in the Gulf of Aden artery that moves oil, aid, and commercial shipping in and out of Red Sea choke points.

Third, rear-area sanctuaries for financiers and facilitators who move people, parts, and propaganda between Somalia, Yemen, and farther afield.

AFRICOM’s own language on degrading ISIS-Somalia’s ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, U.S. forces, and citizens abroad is the doctrinal backbone for all three.

The Target Set: ISIS-Somalia’s Mountain Redoubts

ISIS-Somalia remains smaller than al-Shabaab but punches above its weight because it carved out a logistical and financial niche in the Bari region’s caves and wadis. Analysts have tracked how the group leveraged weak governance and harsh terrain in the Cal Miskaad range to stage, tax, and recruit. A February 2025 assessment flagged the Bari corridor as a critical operational and money hub for the Islamic State network. That is why strikes in these ridgelines matter more than raw body counts. They disrupt supply lines, fracture local intimidation networks, and squeeze the foreign fighter pipeline that Puntland officials say has trickled in to backfill losses.

A Tactical Read: ISR, Fix, Finish

AFRICOM rarely publishes its playbook, but the pattern here is familiar: long dwell intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to fix a target or a moving cell. Somali sources and partner units are used to confirm identities and deconflict civilians. A precision strike that finishes the job before the target walks off the grid or melts into a village. Reporting this year shows a renewed operational tempo against ISIS nodes in Puntland that tracks with an uptick in air operations in 2025. Stars and Stripes documented multi-target strikes in late March, consistent with a campaign approach rather than one-off raids. It is reasonable to assess that U.S. special operations forces, Somali partner spotters, and national-level collectors collaborated to generate the coordinates that Golis ridges demand.

CJTF-HOA And The Grind Between Strikes

This is the part that rarely makes headlines. Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa keeps the machine turning forward of the trigger pull. The task force’s mission set includes building partner capacity, protecting U.S. and coalition interests, and creating the connective tissue that lets Somali units like Danab fight, move, and sustain. Recent CJTF-HOA updates show forward presence in Somalia, from Kismayo to Baledogle, including medical and engineering support that keeps partner forces in the fight and improves casualty survival. That is the invisible scaffolding for a sustained counterterror push.

Drones Cut Both Ways

Drones enable the kind of patient manhunt that mountain warfare demands. They also democratize airpower for the other side. ACLED (the independent, non-governmental data organization that tracks and analyzes political violence and protest events worldwide) flagged the first recorded use of drones by ISIS-Somalia in January, part of a wider trend of nonstate actors using off-the-shelf systems for reconnaissance and attack. Regional defense reporting has cataloged how militants across Africa are adapting commercial platforms for lethal and psychological effect. That means U.S. and Somali forces must harden bases, patrols, and logistics against buzzing cameras and small munitions, even while leveraging higher-end ISR to hunt.

Policy Weather And Operational Latitude

Legal and policy guardrails on counterterror strikes have shifted across administrations. Current analysis suggests the White House has loosened approvals to give commanders more latitude for time-sensitive targets in Somalia this year, a change visible in the pace of operations. The exact rules are classified, but credible open sources argue that authorities now look closer to the permissive posture that previously empowered speed at the theater level. That is one reason why ISIS-Somalia is feeling pressure in its mountain pockets.