The U.S. military steadily ramped up airstrikes against the Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab over the past year, shifting its focus away from the dying Islamic State to al-Qaeda’s most feral ally with relatively little media attention.
Extremism in the Somali community of Minneapolis has long been a concern of American counterterrorism officials, as both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s ally al-Shabaab have been alarmingly successful at recruiting from the area.
A suicide bombing attack on a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia on Thursday evening quickly escalated into a massive gun battle between Somali security forces and jihadis loyal to al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda ally that is becoming increasingly active across the region.