William Bittner
Although his Secretary of State describes China as “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted,” the administration’s rhetoric towards terrorists is equally shrill. Following an airstrike against an Islamic State-Somalia (IS-S) leader, the president promised all terrorists, “We will find you, and we will kill you!” Behind the bravado lies a belief that, even in an era of great power competition, foreign terrorist attacks are an existential threat. “These killers,” he wrote on social media, “threatened the United States and our allies” — even though they were “found hiding in caves.” For all his rhetoric about ending forever wars, terrorism remains on Trump’s mind.
It is thus unsurprising that Trump would prioritise Somalia. It is a major hub of terrorism: IS-S is now the Islamic State’s most online and externally-focused franchise, serving as a nerve centre and funder for partners as far away as Afghanistan. Western intelligence even believes that Abdulqadir Mumin, leader of IS-S, is the current caliph of the global Islamic State. If Trump wants to fight terrorism, Somalia seems a good place to do so.
Trump has a political motivation as well. He needs only look at his predecessors to see the risks of letting a Middle Eastern state collapse. President Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq in 2011 allowed ISIS to dominate his second term, while the disintegration of Libya set the stage for the Benghazi controversy. President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered a decline in his poll numbers from which he never recovered. Trump does not want Somalia to be his Middle East disaster.
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