Galmadug security forces hold their weapons as they stand in a field near the central Somali town of Galkayo on Aug. 18, 2010. (Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
By Kevin Sieff November 10 at 6:04 PM
NAIROBI — An American drone strike thought to have struck Islamist militants in Somalia actually killed 10 members of a regional force allied with the United States, according to results of a Pentagon investigation that have not yet been made public.
The September incident sheds light on the escalating involvement of U.S. forces in Somalia’s protracted war against al-Shabab, a group of al-Qaeda-linked militants. It also points to the unforeseen consequences of increased U.S. drone strikes in a country still run by clan militias.
“They’ve helped us out against a common enemy,” a U.S. military official said Thursday, referring to the regional forces who were killed in the strike. “If we had known who they were, we would have done everything we could to prevent it.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation’s findings are not yet public.
As the United States has waded further into Somalia, it has struggled to form a coalition of allies from a range of rival groups. Two of those groups — from the states of Puntland and Galmadug — have targeted and arrested al-Shabab terrorists, and received American accolades for doing so.
But the groups also have been fighting one another for decades, mostly over territory in the city of Galkayo.
On Sept. 28, Puntland security forces were sent to investigate a “suspicious group,” thought to be al-Shabab based on American surveillance imagery, according to the U.S. official.