The US is bombing Somalia?

Yes, apparently so. Simon Marks and Mohammed Omar Ahmed report in U.S. Steps Up Air Strikes Against al-Qaeda Ally in Somalia Bloomberg News 08/03/2021:

The latest strike occurred close to the central towns of Bacadweyne and Geedaley on Aug. 1, hitting a position held by al-Shabaab militants who were engaging members of the Danab, an elite Somali commando force trained by the U.S., Somalia’s Information Ministry said.

The remote attack was the third in less than two weeks and marked an escalation in counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa nation since President Joe Biden took office in January.

“The air strikes destroyed a large al-Shabaab firing position engaging Danab and Somali National Army forces as they approached,” the ministry said in a statement. An increasing number of al-Shabaab fighters had defected to join the Somali security forces as a result of the recent counter-terrorism measures, it said.

Prior to the end of the Soviet Union, it was common in the United States after the experience of the Vietnam War for the press, Congress, and significant parts of the public were actively concerned that small military engagements could escalate into something far more serious. St. Reagan's interventions in Central American (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala) were major news, eventually producing the Iran-Contra scandal which could have resulted in Reagan being impeached and removed from office.

Now, it's more like: "Oh, we're bombing Somalia (wherever that is)? Must be Tuesday."

This has not been a change for the better.

There no doubt that the jihadist group Al-Shabaab is a nasty bunch of political and miltiary actors.

But other than a sideshow in the Forever Wars, what is the US actually trying to accomplish in Somalia? Congress should be demanding answers and demanding answers. (Yes, I'm having a 1980s flashback, I know.)

Bonnie Kristian recently warned (Biden is prolonging US war in Somalia — he should end it instead Responsible Statecraft 07/27/2021):

Because U.S. involvement in Somalia is all but never discussed in Washington, a brief history is in order. The U.S. government has intermittently intervened in Somalia for the better part of three decades. The East African nation has a strategically valuable coastline near Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, possible untapped oil reserves, and a long record of internal conflict and terrorism after a postcolonial dictatorship that was armed to the teeth by Western and Soviet gifts successively and that collapsed at the Cold War’s end. In 1993, Washington intervened in the subsequent civil war as part of a United Nations coalition. After the tragic Battle of Mogadishu — the “Black Hawk Down” incident — U.S. intervention in Somalia paused until 2007.

Since then [2007], Washington has bombed Somalia almost every year, making it a permanent fixture among the dozens of unpublicized military missions our government maintains in about 20 African countries. U.S. troop levels on the ground in Somalia have varied, but by the time of Trump’s December order for nearly all to withdraw, there were around 700 American service members stationed there. That withdrawal was less significant than it may sound, however: Most of the 650 troops who left moved just across the border to sites in Djibouti or Kenya that the [Wall Street] Journal describes as “within commuting distance of Somali government training camps.” Though scaled down from its 2017-2020 peak, the intervention continues apace under its fourth consecutive president. [my emphasis]

None of this was inhabited by the lack of any specific Congressional authorization.

This is not how foreign policy and war should work for the United States.